ENiA'S' Ordeal, 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



CliaiIi.S_i.Wpyriglit No... 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



ARMENIA'S Ordeal 




THE SPIRIT OF ARMENIA 

(after an old etching.) 



[Price One Dollar. 

ARMENIA'S ORDEAL. 

A SKETCH OF THE MAIN FEATURES OF THE 

HISTORY OF ARMENIA ; 

AND AN INSIDE ACCOUNT OF THE WORK OF AMERICAN 

MISSIONARIES AMONG ARMENIANS, AND 

ITS RUINOUS EFFECT. 



Armayis p. Vartooguian. 



bD tfbp iTliLujO iLULPLpbiuD q[i0^t 

—pu'hnnsnh'ij'h 

Griefs and distressing perils can alone 
determine our excellence. 

— Pacradouni. 



New 
18^ 




^Itl'l -3^1 



Copyright 1896, 

By Armayis P. Vartooguian. 

All rights reserved. 



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PEE FACE. 



It was not a vain desire to come out as an author that 
impelled me to undertake the present work. Only two 
months ago nothing was further from my thoughts than 
to write a book in the near future. My youthful age, 
my limited knowledge of the English language, my edu- 
cation, and many other circumstances, were unfavorable 
for me to make such an attempt. I would fain not as- 
sume this work, and wait longer that some abler person 
might undertake the task, or until I would be more ma- 
ture in age and otherwise ; but I was driven by some in- 
visible power to write this book now. 

Several books and pamphlets have already appeared in 
the English language during the past two memorable 
years treating of the Armenian Question. Some of the 
authors of such works have rendered excellent service in 
lighting up certain points of the question ; while others 
have taken up the subject, not out of any good will to 
the Armenian cause, but for the furtherence of their 
craft, wherein lies their own interest. 

I have been displeased with two volumes on the Ar- 
menian Question, by authors formerly connected with the 
missionary work in Turkey, and I was shocked to see 



IV PHEFACE 

them stabbing the Armenians even now when they are 
electing martyrdom for the sake of Jesus when offered 
the alternative of the sword or the Koran. I could not 
imagine that they would stoop so low as to slander the 
fithof those martyrs who are giving their lives for 
Christianity, and to criticize their Church in the manner 
that it was their wont to do many years ago. Moreover, 
I was grieved to see that a guilty conscience does not 
sting their hearts for the evils which are in no small meas- 
ure due to them. The manner in which authors of this 
class have treated the bleeding Armenia in their books is 
similar to the one suggested by Doctor Cat when in con- 
sultation on poor Jenny Wren — 

Doctor Cat says, ' ' Indeed 

I don't think she's dead ; 
I believe if I try. 

She yet might be bled." 

Their chief aim in writing of Armenia has been to rec- 
ommend the missionary cure as the cheapest and best 
remedy both for the Turks and the Armenians — like some 
patent medicines which are claimed to cure everything 
yet would do good to none. 

The present volume consists of two parts. In the first 
part is made a general review of the main features of the 
history of Armenia ; and in the second part is given an 
inside account of the labors of American missionaries 
among Armenians, and of their evil consequences. 



PREFACE V 

The name of Truth is applauded by all, but Truth it- 
self is very disagreeable and unwelcome to many. Know- 
ing this, I have resolved to cling fast to the truth and 
say nothing but the truth, and to say a good deal of 
truth in relation to my subject, unmindful of its conse- 
quences ; for the best interests of my people lie in the 
revelation of the truth. A. P. V. 

New York, September 14, 1896. 



ARMENIA'S ORDEAL, 

PART FIRST. 
A HISTORICAL SKETCH. 



CHAPTER L* 

THE ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE ARMENIAN NATION. 

The Armenian race belongs to the Japhetic branch of 
the human family. Its origin is traced to a patriarch 
like that of the Jews. They are the descendants of Haig, 
the eldest of the eight sons of Torgom, or Togarmah. 
Togarmah's name is recorded in the book of Genesis as a 
grandson of Japhet. This shows that the national anti- 
quity of the Armenians dates further back than that of 
the Jews. 

After the deluge Noah is said to have settled near the 
skirts of Mount Ararat, which is quite natural to assume, 
where his descendants lived with him until they grew so 
numerous that it became necessary for them to emigrate 
towards Shinar. 

Haig accompanied the migration to Shinar where he 
took part in the construction of the tower of Babel, but 
after the confusion of the tongues he returned with his 
family to the shores of Lake Van, in Armenia, where his 

♦This chapter is written chiefly upon the authority of Moses 
of Khorene, the Armenian historian of the V. century. 



2 ARMENIA'S ORDEAL 

father and grandfather resided. It is but natural that 
all did not join the great emigration, and the older folks 
preferred to remain in their paternal home near the skirts 
of Mount Ararat. Eeturning to the home of his forefa- 
thers, Haig built a town for his family and attendants, in 
all numbering about three hundred souls, which he named 
Hark, meaning the fathers, from which Ingigian, the emi- 
nent Armenian archaeologist, infers that Haig must have 
been an affectionate son, strongly attached to his forefa- 
thers ; hence he finds it natural that Haig should have 
learned again the tongue of his father which he had lost 
in the confusion, and that he did not preserve the lan- 
guage which he brought from Shinar, and which was 
given as a divine curse. In those days Mmrod, a power- 
ful chief, established a monarchy and ruled over all the 
emigrants who had gone to Shinar. After his arrival and 
settlement on the shores of Lake Van, Haig was followed 
by Mmrod, who came at the head of an army to subju- 
gate Armenia. Haig gave battle to Nimrod and slew the 
tyrant. By this act of gallantry Haig became the pro- 
tector and chief of his country. 

The family of Haig grew into a nation within 300 
years, and Prince Aram, the sixth generation of Haig, 
extended his conquests as far as Cappadocia, where he 
planted a great colony on the site of the present Caesaria. 
It was after this prince that Haig's descendants were 
called by foreign nations "Armenians," instead of Hai, and 
their country was known as Armenia, instead of Haias- 
dan. Hai and Haiasdan are still the only appellations 
used among the Armenians themselves. Particulars are 
wanting regarding the rule of the first Armenian dynasty, 
which governed Armenia down to the time of -Alexander 



akmenia's ordeal 3 

the Great, by whom the country was brought to submis- 
sion, B. C. 327. Among the princes of the first dynasty 
the greatest was King Tigrane I., who reigned over Ar- 
menia for fourty-five years (565-520 B. C). In the days 
of this illustrious monarch Armenia attained the maxi- 
mum of her pre-Christian prosperity. The historian tells 
that in those days almost all the available land through- 
out the kingdom was cultivated ; the country was dense- 
ly populated, and the prevailing prosperity attracted the 
peoples of the neighboring countries. The famed city of 
Tigranocerta, now known by the Turkish name Diarbe- 
kir, was founded and built by this king. Tigrane I. al- 
so engaged in many wars and aggrandized his dominion. 
He was succeeded by Yahagn, the youngest of his th;ee 
sons, who possessed such remarkable muscular strength 
that he was deified and his image was worshipped by the 
Georgians for several centuries. 

After the downfall of the first dynasty and the con- 
quest of Armenia by Alexander the Great, the country 
was governed by Armenian noblemen, who paid a tribute 
to Seleucia. Armenia regained her independence in the 
year 149 B. C, receiving upon her throne Vagharshag, a 
Parthian prince and a brother of the king of Persia. Va- 
gharshag became the founder of the Arshagouni (Arsace- 
dean) dynasty which reigned over Armenia until A. D. 
428. 

Under this second dynasty Armenia once more became 
a powerful kingdom. Ardashes I., surnamed the Con- 
queror, ascended the Armenian throne B. C. 114. He 
was a warlike prince, and conquered many neighboring 
principalities. One of his enterprising achievemerts was 
the construction of a formidable fleet with which he su^ 



4 Armenia's ORDEAii 

ceeded in capturing many islands in the Mediterranean. 
He also invaded Greece, and thence imported to Arme- 
nia the images of Grecian deities, together with their 
respective priests, and established them in various parts 
of Armenia ; hence the introduction of Grecian polythe- 
ism in Armenia. After a glorious reign of twenty-five 
years Ardashes the Conqueror was killed by his own 
troops during a tumult in his army. 

Tigrane II., better known as Tigrane the Great, suc- 
ceeded his father, Ardashes the Conqueror, in 89 B. C. 
The news of the sudden death of Ardashes came to the 
newly conquered nations like a signal for a general rebel- 
lion, so that when Tigrane ascended the throne Greeks 
and other peoples were invading Armenia. Tigrane's 
rule began by first putting down the widespread insur- 
rections, and making it understood by all that although 
Ardashes was dead, he was much alive in the person of 
his young son. 

Mithridates VI., King of Pontus, was a brother-in-law 
of Tigrane, having marrried a daughter of Ardashes the 
Conqueror. His kingdom was under the suzerainty of 
that of Armenia, and, on account of his extraordinary ta- 
lent and bravery, he had been a favorite at the court of 
his father-in-law. Tigrane entrusted Mithridates with 
the command of an Armenian army consisting of 140,000 
infantry and 16,000 cavalry, and commissioned him with 
the conquest of Greece. Mithridates met with great suc- 
cess. Within a short time he subdued Bithynia, which 
was in revolt, and advanced on Thrace, Macedonia and 
Greece, which likewise submitted to his conquering ad- 
vance. The Armenian army under the command of Mith- 
ridates finally captured Athens in 87 B. C. This swift 





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TIGRANE THE GREAT. 



Armenia's ordeal 5 

succes encouraged Tigrane the Great to contemplate of 
pushing his conquest forward even to Rome itself. But 
soon matters took an adverse turn. Sulla hastened from 
Rome at the head of an army to meet Mithridates in 
Greece. The Romans were coming out fresh from their 
home, while the Armenian army was badly in need of re 
inforcements as its conquests had naturally cost more or 
less loss of strength. But Armenia was too far behind 
for immediate reinforcements. Mithridates was driven 
out of Greece with great loss and the Romans pursued 
him across the Hellespont.* 

Dissatisfied with the outcome of Mithridates' expedi- 
tion in Europe, Tigrane assumed the commandership 
himself and began to conduct the war in person. These 
wars lasted very long. Sulla, Lucullus, and Pompey were 
successively sent on Armenia, but they found her uncon- 
querable. Tigrane and Mithridates resisted them very 
bravely. The Romans would have certainly been driven 
back to Europe had it not been for treacheries in Tig- 
rane's own army, — the result of Roman bribery and pro- 
mises. Parnag,(Pharnaces, ) son of Mithridates, passed to 
the enemy's side and besieged his own father at Pantica- 
pseum till at last in his despair Mithridates sought relief 
in death by committing suicide together with the mem- 



*Mithridates being a king himself, the Romans seem to have 
had the impression, which was not unnatural, that he was wa- 
ging this war on the account of his own crown, and Roman his- 
torians have recorded this campaign accordingly. They also 
seem to have felt a pleasure in speaking of the achievements 
of the Armenian fleet in the Ionian and Tuscan Seas as the work 
of Cilician pirates, but the magnitude of the depredations, as 
they describe, is suflficient to convince their readers that they 
could have been no work of mere pirates. 



6 Armenia's ordeal 

bers of his family who were with him, B. C. 63. Tig- 
rane the Great also had the same misfortune as his bro- 
ther-in-law. His son, Diran, rebelled against him and 
by the help of the king of Persia laid siege to the city 
Ardashad. Diran was defeated by his father and put to 
flight, whereupon he went into the camp of Pompey 
whom he guided against his own father. Under these 
sinister circumstances Tigrane was compelled to conclude 
peace with Pompey, ceding to Rome certain territories. 

Tigrane abdicated and placed his son Ardavazt I. upon 
the throne, taking the command of the army upon him- 
self. Once more he went to war with the Romans and 
fought against Gabianus, Crassus, and Cassius, but e- 
yentually the Romans became masters of Assyria because 
Tigrane was no more young. By making certain conces- 
sions Tigrane secured the alliance of the King of Persia 
and renewed hostilities against the Romans and drove 
them out of Assyria. The wars continued until Tigrane 
the Great died at the age of eighty-five years,- having 
reigned fifty-four years, which was an era of almost con- 
tinual wars for Armenia. 

Ardavazt I. did not posses the spirit of his father, and 
the powerful kingdom of Armenia was soon overcome. 
Ardavazt was treacherously made a prisoner by Mark 
Antony and was carried to Egypt where he was decapi- 
tated. After the death of Ardavazt, the kingdom of Ar- 
menia was divided into two and was governed by two 
difierent princes of the Arsacedean dynasty, the one be- 
ing Armenia proper and the other Mitchaked (Mesopo- 
tamia), 



ARMENIA'S ORDEAL 7 

CHAPTER II. 

CHRISTIANITY IN ARMENIA. 

Arsham, a nephew of Tigrane the Great, became the^ 
ruler of Mesopotamia, making Mudzpin (Nisibis) his 
seat, and paid a tribute to Rome. After a reign of about 
thirty years he was succeeded by his son, Abgar,* in the 
year 1 B. C. This prince became famous in Armenian 
history not by conquest, but by being the first monarch 
to believe in Jesus Christ. 

Finding Mudzpin to be too near to the Assyrian boun- 
dary, King Abgar thought that he was exposed to the 
danger of suddenly being attacked by the Romans. 
Therefore he removed his seat to Edessa. In his days the 
King of Persia died and a dispute arose for the succes- 
sion among the king's surviving three sons. The royal 
house of Persia being related to that of Armenia, Abgar 
hastened to Persia to settle the dispute by arbitration. 
During his sojourn in Persia Abgar contracted a dreadful 
desease, supposed to be leprosy, by which he suffered 
long. 

It so happened that three Armenian military emissaries 
upon their return from their mission, passed through Je- 
rusalem for the purpose of seeing Jesus, whose fame had 

*According to Moses of Khorene the correct name of this 
prince was originally Avac-air, (which in Armenian means g-reat 
mari,') "because of his meekness and wisdom, and also for his sta- 
ture," but it was corrupted by his numerous Greek and Assyrian 
subjects to Avgarus; hence Abgarus. This latter form some less 
informed persons have supposed to be a corruption of the Arabic 
name Akbar. 



8 Armenia's ordeal 

reached their ears. On their return to Edepsa they told 
to King Abgar of the miracles they had witnessed and 
heard of. Upon hearing their narrations the afflicted 
king exclaimed : * 'He must be either a god that has des- 
cended from the heavens, or a son of a god." He be- 
lieved in Jesus then and there, and believed that He 
could cure him of his disease. Immediately he caused a 
letter to be written to Jesus inviting Him to come to E- 
dessa and heal him, and rule upon his little kingdom to- 
gether. The letter was dispatched by Anan, the royal 
courier. Anan was accompanied by an artist who was 
instructed to bring a portrait of Jesus, in case He should 
decline the invitation. Jesus sent an answer, written by 
the apostle Thomas, in which He declined the invitation 
and promised to send two of His apostles after He would 
*'ascend unto His Father."* Besides the letter, the Lord 

*The text of Abgar' s letter and its answer are to be found in 
Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History. Eusebius declares that he had 
found the copies in the archieves of Edessa, and had translated 
from them. Moses of Khorene, one of the best scholars of the 
Golden Age of Armenian literature, testifies in h-is History of Ar- 
menia that in his time those manuscripts were still preserved in 
the royal archieves of Edessa. His history contains not only the 
texts of those two letters, but also those of several other impor- 
tant epistles sent by Abgar to various monarchs recommend- 
ing them the religion of Jesus. These precious documents were 
lost probably during the destruction of Edessa by the »Saracens 
when the magnificent metropolis was set on fire and razed to the 
ground. 

Referring to the passage in the Gospel where the visit of "cer- 
tain Greeks" to Jesus is mentioned, Moses of Khorene says that 
they were Abgar' s emissaries. In the Greek version of the Gos- 
pel those visitors are referred to as "certain Gentiles," while 
according to the Syriac version they were "Aramaeans." 

It is considered strange that a full account of such a re- 
markable event in the career of our Lord should have been o- 



Armenia's ordeal 9 

sent to King Abgar a napkin bearing the likeness of His 
face. 

After the ascension of Jesus, apostle Thomas sent 
Thaddeus, one of the seventy-two disciples, to Edessa. 
King Abgar received Thaddeus with the greatest honors, 
and even prostrated himself on his face before the dis- 

mltted by the four Evangelists. In chapter xii. of the Gospel 
of John the account of the visit of those Gentiles seems to be 
abruptly curtailed. While the Evangelist has gone into details 
regarding the visit of the strangers as to who they saw first, 
what they said, and what Philip did &c. ; nothing is said about 
the strangers being received by the Lord, and why they wanted 
to see Jesus, or why Philip was so much stirred up as to go and 
confer with another apostle. There must have been something 
unusual about these strangers, for we see no other instance in 
which the apostles should have conferred with each other before 
presenting to Jesus any one that wished to see Him. 

Assuming that the strangers were royal emissaries, who had 
come to offer the Lord a crown, does it not seem natural that the 
apostles should have conferred with each other as to with what 
etiquette the distinguished visitors were to be received by Jesus? 
Philip and Andrew, after conferring with each other, did not 
take the strangers forthwith to the presence of Jesus, but went 
and spoke to Him, presumably to inquire in what manner He 
would receive such royal emissaries on such a mission. The 
words of Jesus on this occation tend to support the belief 
that they were Abgar's emissaries inviting Jesus to go to E- 
dessa and share the throne with the king Jesus ^aid on that 
occation: "The hour is come that the Son of man should be glo- 
rified," [that is to say, I think, that he should be glorified by the 
accomplishment of His mission, which was to die for the salva- 
tion of mankind]. His words on this occation are very much 
like arguing why he should not accept the offer, and should 
suffer death at the hands of his own people. He said: 

"Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into 
the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth 
forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he 
that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. 
If any man serve me let him follow me." (John xii. 24-26.) 



10 Armenia's ordeal 

ciple. 

"Art thou the disciple of the blessed Jesus," asked 
the king eagerly, **whom He had promised to send unto 
me, and canst thou heal me of my affliction?" 

"If thou believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, thy 
heart's wish shall be granted unto thee," replied Thad- 
deus. 

"I have believed in Him, and in His Father," answer- 
ed Abgar. 

Thaddeus preached the gospel, and placing his hand 
upon the head of the king healed him of his affliction. 
The whole royal household and the people of fedessa 
soon believed in Christ and were baptised by the apostle. 
Thaddeus ordained Atte, the king's morion maker, as bi- 
shop of Edessa and he went to Armenia proper there to 
preach the gospel. 

During the days of Abgar Christianity was rapidly 
spread throughout Armenia, but upon his death Anane, 
Abgar's son and successor, and Sanndroug, Abgar's ne- 
phew and the king of Armenia proper, became persecu- 
tors of the newly introduced religion, obviously for poli- 
tical reasons. Anane reigned but a short time and he 
was crushed to death under a falling pillar while giving 
instructions in the construction of a new palace. Upon 
Anane's death Mesopotamia was re-annexed to Arme- 
nia proper. Apostle Bartholomew also came to Armenia 
and labored for the propagation of the Christian faith. 
Like Anane, Sanadroug also lost his life by an accident. 
He was killed by an arrow shot astray by one of his ar- 
chers while hunting. 

After that there were times of persecution and times 
of toleration, and the number of the believers increased or 



ARMENIA'S ORDEAL 11 

decreased accordingly. But Christianity was never per- 
emptorily abandoned by the Armenians, However a re- 
vival took place at the hands of St, Gregory the Illumin- 
ator, by the conversion of King Durtad (Tiridates, ) and 
once more Christianity became the national religion of 
the Armenians, A. D. 302. Within a very short time al- 
most the whole nation had been converted. The Church 
of Armenia was formally organized and St. Gregory be- 
came the Catholicos or Pontiff of the Church.* 



CHAPTER HI. 

THE STRUGGLE FOR THE MAINTENANCE OF THE NATIONAL 
CHURCH. 

Upon the downfall of the Arsacedean dynasty, 428 A. 
D. , Armenia lost her independence and became a satrapy 
of Persia. Yezdigird II., the King of Persia, first secur- 
ed his powerful grasp on Armenia, and then he invited 
the Armenian nation to renounce their religion and be- 
come Zoroastrian fire-worshippers. A council consisting 
of the leading ecclesiastics and the nobility, especially as- 
sembled, wrote, on behalf of the nation, a ringing reply 
ty the King's imperious message, which concluded thus : 

^'From this faith no one can move us, — neither angela 

*Perhaps it may not be out of place to correct an error, which. 
appears so often in the press, legarding' the Catholicos of the 
Church of Armenia. The Catholicos is not the "head" of the 
Church as he is erroneously called. He is the high priest of the 
Church, — the head of the clergy. The Church of Armenia re- 
cognizes Christ as the only head of the Church, according to the 
teachings of Paul (Ephesians y, 23, Colossians i. 17-18.) 



13 Armeis^ia'S ordeal 

nor men; neither sword, nor fire, nor water, nor any- 
deadly punishment. If thou leave us our faith, we will 
have no other [civil] lord in place of thee ; but we will 
accept no god in place of Jesus Christ."* 

This dauntless reply enraged the self-styled King of 
Kings, and he issued orders to his generals to go and 
crush the rigid necks of the obstinate Armenians, and to 
show them that the crucified Jesus, whom they worship- 
ped so devotedly, was no match for Zarathrustra's Ahura- 
Mazda. This happened in A. D. 451. The invading ar- 
my was accompanied with a host of magi who were to 
instruct the Armenians in the worship of the fire when 
brought to submission by force. The Armenians were 
determined to perish rather than renounce their Chris- 
tianity. A great Armenian revolution resulted, led by 
the ecclesiastics, — a holy war, a heroic struggle, great 
bloodshed, horrible martyrdoms. The decisive battle 
was fought in the plain of Avarair, on the banks of the 
river Dughmood. One thousand and thirty-six Arme- 
nians fell in the battle, including many prominent nobles, 
and the Commander-in-chief Yartan Mamigonian , the 
soul of the revolution, who has since been recognized as 
a saint for defending the Church so heroically. 

Of the Persians that day over 3500 were killed, among 
whom were many prominent soldiers and chiefs, the flo- 
wer of the army, so that the Persian commander tremb- 
led to report to his sovereign the result of the battle. 
Yezdigird II. became convinced that it would be impos- 
sible to subdue the Armenians and to forcibly proselyte 
them, and wishing to put an end to the unprofitable war- 

*Eghiche, Varian, and the War of the Armenians. 







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VARTAN MAMIGONIAN. 



Armenia's ordeal 13 

fare, he abruptly changed his policy and issued an edict 
granting them freedom of worship. 

Peace reigned in Armenia for a short time, and the 
Persians again began to oppress the Armenians. About 
fourteen years after the battle of Avarair, the Armenians 
once more revolted against Persia ; this time being led by 
Vahan Mamigonian, the worthy nephew of Vartan. This 
revolution met with every success. The Persians were 
driven out of Armenia, and the King of Persia sued for 
peace, conceding to Yahan the satrapy of Armenia for 
life. Vahan governed his country for twenty-six years 
on a liberal scale, and after his death Armenia continu- 
ed to enjoy an autonomous government for about one 
hundred and forty years, being ruled by Armenian nobles 
appointed by, and tributary to Persia. 

In the first half of the VII. century Armenia succes- 
sively fell into the hands of the Greeks, the Persians, and 
the Saracens. About the year 640, during the Khalifate 
of Omar, when Mohammedanism had become powerful 
in the South, the Saracens swooped upon Armenia under 
the leadership of Abd-ul-Rahman. They met with but 
little resistance and captured Tween, the then capital of 
Armenia; they plundered the city and massacred 12,000 
souls, and they carried 35,000 into captivity. After thus 
plundering and devastating the country they retired 
from Armenia. At this time Armenia was governed by 
a native prefect, appointed by the Emperor of Constanti- 
nople. While the Greeks ruled over Armenia and exact- 
ed heavy taxes, they would not protect her inhabitants 
against foreign incursions, and, besides, they would even 
abuse their power so much as to attempt to meddle with 
the religious affairs of the Church of Armenia. These 



14 Armenia's ordeal. 

things drove the Armenians to prefer to be under the su- 
zerainty of the Saracens rather than that of the fanati- 
cal Christian Greeks who hated them as much as the Mos- 
lems did, and whose bigotry and endless theological dis- 
putes were more intolerable than the rule of the Moham- 
medans.* Therefore they entered under the protection of 
the Saracens. This enraged Emperor Constantine and he 
invaded Armenia, and garrisoned the country with Greek 
soldiers. He ordered the Council of Chalcedon to be 
read in the cathedral in Tween, and forcibly constrained 
the Armenians to accept the same, But after Constan- 
tine's departure, the Catholicos, Johannes the Philoso- 
pher, condemned the Council of Chalcedon and ruled it 
out, 647 A. D. 

After that Armenia alternately fell into the hands of 
the Saracens and the Greeks. Each one proved to be 
worse than the other. When the Greeks were dominant 
Armenians wished to be under the Saracens, and when 
the latter ruled they washed to be under the former. 
The Greeks were as tyrrannical as the Mohammedans and 
as much eager to proselyte the Armenians into their 
Church. Armenians struggled with all their might for 
the preservation of the apostolic purity of their national 
church, which was **the price of the blood of their brave 
forefathers, and the glory of the Armenian nation." It 
was impossible for such a conscientious people as the 
Armenians to leave their pure and simple Christian 
Church, which stood only for the edification of the spi- 

* "The Greek race, too old and too exhausted to bear a new and 
a severe religion like Christianity, dissolved it into theological 
quibbling which was obliged to borrow substance from idolat- 
ry." — Menzies, History of the Ottotttan Enij>ire, p. 37. 



ARMENIA'S ORDEAL 15^ 

rit,* for that of the Greek Church, which was used as an 
instrument to subjugate peoples and to rule over the na- 
tions, body and soul. Armenians would endure the tyr- 
ranny of the Moslem rather than forsake their practical 
Christianity and suffer the sanctity of their religion to be 
made the plaything of the Greeks. So, finally, in the 
year 693 A. D. once more they flung themselves into the 
arms of the Saracens in compliance with the motto of 
Yartan Mamigonian's revolution: '^Fear him not that kil- 
leth only the body, fear him that doth cast both body and 
spirit into hell. " 

Had the Greeks left the Armenians alone, perhaps the 
Armenians could defend their country against the Mos- 
lems and could regain their autonomy. But it was im- 
possible for them to do anything efEective between those 
two fires, having on the one hand the fanatical Greek 
Christians and on the other hand the barbarous Arabian 
Mohammedans. Armenians could not resist both of these 
powerful enemies at the same time. They had to choose 
between the two and throw themselves into the arms of 
the one which they considered less dangerous to the cons- 
titution of their Church. 



* The following is the testimony of an American who was for- 
merly a missionary in Armenia; it has particular weight because, 
as a rule, the missionaries are not disposed to speak well regard- 
ing the Church of Armenia: 

"By nature the Armenians are deeply religious, as their whole 
literature and history show. It has been a religibn of the /leari, 
not of the head. Its evidence is not to be found in metaphysical 
discussions and hair-splitting theology as in the case of the 
Greeks, but in a brave and simple record written with the tears 
of saints and illuminated with the blood of martyrs." — Rev. 
Frederick D, Greene, T/ie Armenian Crisis in Turkey, p. 140. 



16 Armenia's ordeal 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE RISE AND FALL OF THE BAGARATIAN DYNASTY. 

Under Moslem rule Armenia became the scene of the 
most awful cruelties for a period of about one hundred 
and sixty years, until they regained their autonomy at 
the hands of Ashod Pacradound, an Armenian nobleman, 
who established a kingdom tributary to the Khalif of 
Bagdad, and became the founder of the Pacradouni (Ba- 
garatian) dynasty, A. D. 859. This dynasty reigned o- 
ver Armenia one hundred and eighty-seven years. Dur- 
ing the reign of the Bagaratian princes Armenia once 
more flourished and became a centre of civilization. Her 
capital, Ani, became a magnificent Christian metropolis 
which boasted of having one thousand and one chur- 
ches.* 

♦The reader may be enabled to form an Idea of the splendor 
of this superb metropolis of ancient Armenia by reading Sir Ro- 
bert Ker Porter's description of the state of its ruins 6n the occa- 
tion of his visit in 1817, several centuries after the destruction of 
Ani by earthquake. It is as follows: 

"The Western and Northern fronts have been defended by a 
double range of high walls and towers of the finest masonry. 
Three great entrances present themselves to the north. Over 
the centre gate was sculptured a leopard or lion-passant; and 
near it on the flanking towers, several large crosses were carved 
in the stone, and richly decorated with exquisite fret-work. On 
entering the city I found the whole surface of the ground co- 
vered with hewn stones, broken capitals, colum-ns, shattered, 
but highly ornamental friezes; and other remains of ancient 
inagnificence. * Several churches, still existing in different parts 




KING ASHOD PACRADOUNI. 



akmenia's ordeal 17 

If there ever was a place and a time when the king- 
dom of Christ was come on earth, in the highest sense of 
the word, it was Armenia under the Bagaratian dynasty. 
While, in times past, and in the present. Christian mon- 
archs have assumed and do assume to be the head of the 
church wherein their subjects worship, the King of Ar- 
menia at this time humbly served the priest before the 
altar, and chanted hymns together with the choir liko 
any other common man. The King of Armenia, when in 
the church, considered himself the equal of any layman, 
and below any ecclesiastic. The priesthood had no 
worldly power wherewith to constrain the laity into sub- 
mission, yet the people reverenced them and humbly sub- 
mitted to their authority as to the servants of the Church 
of Christ. And the clergy guided their flock in the true 

of the place, retain something more than ruins of their former 
dignity, but they are as solitary as all the other structures, on 
which time and devastation have left more heavy strokes. In 
the western extremity of this great town, in which no living 
beings, except ourselves, seemed breathing, we saw the palace, 
once of the kings of Armenia; and it is a building worthy of 
the fame of this old capital. Its length stretches nearly the 
whole breadth, between the walls of the city on one side, and 
the ravine on the other. Indeed it seems a town in itself; and 
so superbly decorated within and without, that no description 
can give an adequate idea of the variety and richness of the 
highly wrought carvings on the stone, which are all over the 
building; or of the finely-executed mosaic patterns, which beau- 
tify the floors of its countless halls. ( ,^ 

"Near the centre of the city rise two octagon towers of an 
Immense height, surmounted by turrets. They command all 
around them, even the citedal, which stands to the south-west 
on a high rock and at the edge of a precipice. The farther I 
went, and the closer I examined the remains of this vast capital, 
the greater was my admiration of its firm and finished masonry. 
In short, the masterly workmanship of the capitals of pillars, 



18 ARMENIA'S ORDEAL 

spirit of Christianity, without taking advantage of the 
people's submission for their own worldly benefit. 

The Pontiff of the Church of Armenia never needed 
to have temporal power for the purpose of being obeyed 
by the laity ; the laity obeyed him as children would to 
their father. When the King was found in any misde- 
meanor the Pontiff would go and advise him or rebuke 
him, as the case might make it necessary. The King, 
having all the power in his hand to punish the Pontiff 
for disregard to his royal dignity, would cast down his 
eyes acknowledging his fault, and would promise to be 
good, sealing a kiss upon the hand of the venerable Pon- 
tiff. The King, as a Christian, knew that the temporal 
authority was below the spiritual, and that the former 
was to be guided by the latter. The King obeyed the 
Pontiff as a robust young man would obey his aged fa- 
ther, never for a moment thinking that he is physically 



the nice carvings of the intricate ornaments, and the arabesque 
friezes, surpassed anything of the kind I had ever seen, whether 
abroad, or in the most celebrated cathedrals of England. 

"I particularly observed a religious edifice, of less dimensions 
than some of the others, but of exquisite architecture. It stood 
very near the octagon towers; and its high arched roof was a 
beautiful specimen of mosaic work, enriched with borders of 
the pure Etruscan, formed in red, black and yellow stone. The 
pillars, and all ornamental parts of the building, were as sharp 
and fresh as if but the erection of yesterday.*** Fine and bril- 
liant mosaic, executed with more or less precision, spreads itself 
over the city; and, in general, the form of the cross appears to be 
the root whence all the various patterns spring. Houses, chur- 
ches, towers, embattled walls, every structure, high or low, par- 
take the prevailing taste; and on all we see the holy insignia 
carved, large or small, in black stone."— Sir Robert Ker Porter, 
Travels in Georgia, Persia, Armenia, Ancient Babylonia, «&*., ^., vol. 
i, pp. 172-174. ' -' 



ABMENIA'S OBDBAIi 19 

superior to his father. — (I fear that this simile will not 
convey to the average American mind just what I wish 
to express, for I have observed that in America generally 
fathers do not receive due respect from their children, — 
except when the ' 'old man" is wealthy. But I know of 
no other example wherewith to express my idea.) 

During the reign of the Bagaratian dynasty the Ar- 
menian nation did not cease to have troubles with the 
various Moslem races and the Greeks, and parts of Ar- 
menia having fallen into the hands o± the invaders, the 
inhabitants of those parts suffered very much under their 
alien oppressors. But the majority of the Armenians 
living in their autonomous country, enjoyed liberty, and 
much flourished and prospered. This excited the envy 
and the grudge of the Greeks. 

In the year 1045 Gagig II., the King of Armenia, was 
invited by the Greek Emperor, in a friendly manner, to 
visit Constantinople. The King of Armenia accepted 
the invitation and went to the Greek capital. The Chris- 
tian Emperor of the Greeks violated all laws of hospita- 
lity and made a prisoner of his royal guest. In the mean- 
time Ani, the Armenian capital, was invaded and captur- 
ed by an army of 100,000 of the Emperor's troops. Af- 
ter the Greek occupation of Armenia was accomplished, 
Gagig II. was released, and subsequently he was mur- 
dered by Greek assassins. 

The domination of the fanatical Greeks was attended 
with severe religious persecution, and the Catholicos, 
Bedros Kedatartz, was banished out of Armenia. The 
territories which the Greeks snatched with cowardly trea- 
chery, were soon overrun by the Seljukian Turks. The 
Greeks were no Armenians ; they could not resist the f u- 



20 ARMENIA'S ORDEAL 

rious torrent of Mohammedan invasions with the same 
bravery which the Armenians had heretofore manifested. 
Within about thirty-five years all those territories fell in- 
to the hands of the Turks. In the struggle between the 
Greeks and the Turks, the Armenians were trampled by 
both. In wresting any city from each other's hands, both 
of the combatting powers would not spare the inhabi- 
tants. Almost every city became the scene of atrocious 
cruelties. The defeated Greek soldiers, in their flight, 
broke their vengeance upon the Armenians. The Greeks 
would not spare them because they did not accept the 
Greek Church and, therefore, were accursed heretics; 
and the Turks would burn the Armenian cities, massacre 
the inhabitants, and perpetrate all sorts of infernal atro- 
cities, because they were ''Christian dogs" and did not 
accept the Prophet of the Allah. 



The student of history will note that the growth and con- 
quests of Mohammedanism, were considerably facilitated by the 
unwise policy of the Christian nations toward one another. 
The Christian governments, excepting that of Armenia, have 
been short-sighted, and selfish in the extreme; they have been 
plotting against each other, fighting with each other, weakening 
each other, and rendering each other easy prey for the advan- 
cing common enemy, — Mohammedanism. In this respect 
the Byzantine empire has been very foolish. The Armenian 
nation stood like a formidable barrier between the Asiatic Mo- 
hammedans and Europe. But the Byzantine empire, instead of 
helping the Armenians to hold their ground and keep the in- 
vading Mohammedans at bay, has been as much eager to 
pull down that barrier as the Mohammedans were. One would 
think the Greeks imagined that there were treasures hidden be- 
yond Armenia for which they yearned. After becoming mas- 
ters of Armenia by means of treachery, as related above, they 
found themselves face to face with the fire of hell in the person 



ARMENIA'S ORDEAL 21 

Of Alp Arslan, the sultan of the Seljukian Turks. The Greek 
power melted like wax before that fire. Alp Arslan crushed the 
immense Greek army which was headed by the C^sar Ro- 
manus Diogenes. The Emperor himself was taken prisoner 
and carried to the presence of Alp Arslan, who tramp ed 
upon the pride of his distinguished captive by actually setthig 
his foot upon the Greek Emperor's neck. (See Menzies Htst. 
Ott Emp. p. 29.) And the Greeks brought this upon themselves 
by plotting against the unoffensive Armenian nation! 

The Seljukian Turks wrested Armenia from the hands of 
the Greeks and pushed forward into the heart of Asia Minor, 
near to the Byzantine capital. Ere long the sultanry of Icon- 
Inm was founded, (1095), and Asia Minor became the ^lome of 
the Turks: but the Greeks did not take lesson from this. Their 
hatred towards Christians outside of their own Church was so 
intense that they were disinclined to consider the interests of 
Christendom, and were blind to their own. Even then the Byzan- 
tine empire leagued secretly with the Moslem sultans, against 
the Crusaders who were coming to avenge Christianity and to 
deliver the holy places from the hands of the infidel Why? Be- 
cause the Crusaders belonged to the Roman Church and not the 
Orthodox Greek. . 

When the Ottomans took rise and were rapidly growing into 
an empire, the Byzantine empire and the other Christian govern- 
ments of Eastern Europe, instead of being alarmed and f ormmg 
themselves into a Christian league against the common enemy, 
sought to smash each other's head by the help of the Ottomans. 
The assistance of the Ottomans was sought by the Greeks even 
in factional quarrels among themselves in Constantinople. The 
minor Christian nations in Eastern Europe followed the same 
unwise policy. Thus they enfeebled themselves and one another 
and helped the Ottomans to grow powerful. Eventually all of 
them received the reward of their foolishness by being devoured 
by the monster which they petted as a fine beast to tear those 
they hated. They are to be pitied for their want of common 
sense. 



ABMENIA'S OBDEAL 



CHAPTER Y. 

THE REIGN OP THE BUBENIANS AND THE PEBHj OF THE 
NATIONAL CHUBCH. 

The Bufferings of the Armenians were somewhat alle- 
viated by the rise of a new dynasty and the establish- 
ment of an autonomous Armenian principality in the pro- 
vince of Cilicia, which afterwards became a kingdom. 
This fourth dynasty was founded by Ruben I., a relative 
of the unfortunate Gagig II., and was known as the Ru- 
benian dynasty. The dominion of the Rubeniana began 
in 1080, and its authority was confined to the province 
of Cilicia, \N^ich became a place of refuge for the Arme- 
nians. Armenia proper was in a state of anarchy under 
the sway of Mohammedanism, and battles were constantly 
fought between the barbarian Moslems and the desperate 
Armenians who would revolt and fall upon their relent- 
less oppressors. The country had become one vast field of 
massacre, rapine and incendiarism, attended with all their 
shocking details that the Moslem mind could conceive. 
To these horrors were added famine, pestilence and 
earthquake. The magnificent Ani was destroyed by 
earthquake ; Edessa, the cradle of Christianity in Arme- 
nia, was bui-ned to the ground together with its numer- 
ous suburbs, and the populace were put to the sword or 
carried into captivity. The hideous calamities which 
befell Armenia after the fall of the Bagaratian dynasty 
cannot oe described. 

The Rubenians preserved an autonomous government 



ahmenia's ordeaij 23 

in Cilicia for two hundred and ninety-four years, with 
a short interval of Greek domination. This Httle king- 
dom had to contend with three powerful foes, only one 
of which would be sufhcient to ruin any such diminutive 
state. The first was the almost incessant Moslem incur- 
sions; the second, the Greek hostilities; and the third, 
the Roman Catholic missionaries who created discord and 
strife among the Armeninas, and fomented a great many 
internal troubles. These missionaries endeavored to have 
the Armenian Church recognize the supremecy of the 
Eoman papacy, and accept the doctrines of the Romish 
Church in place of those handed down by Gregory the 
Illuminator and the early fathers. These troubles deve- 
loped particularly in the days of Hethoum II. 

During the reign ot Leon I., the Greeks dealt another 
fatal blow to Armenian autonomy. Emperor Johannes 
Porphyrogenitus marched upon Cilicia at the head of a 
vast army, determined to crush the heretic Armenians 
and to put an end to their self-government. After a 
brave struggle the little kingdom was conquered, and the 
King was carried into captivity together with his two 
youthful sons, Ruben and Thoros ; and all three were im- 
prisoned in Constantinople, A. D. 1137. Thus the mar- 
tyred Armenian nation was deprived of its sole refuge 
on earth, and lost the little comfort that it enjoyed. 
Leon I. died in captivity, and Ruben was poisoned. 

Thoros made his escape from captivity and went to 
Cilicia. He revealed his identity to a priest, and imme- 
diately about ten thousand armed Armenians joyfully 
gathered around him, anxious to shake off the intolerable 
Greek yoke. Within a short time the Greeks were 
driven out of the country, and CHicia was once more free 



24 Armenia's ordeal 

with Thoros II. as king. When through emissaries it 
was asked of Thoros what amount would he accept for 
the ransom of the Emperor's generals whom he held cap- 
tives, the young King replied with disdain : "I am sur- 
prised to learn that my captives are of any value for the 
Emperor. They are not worth anything for me ; I cap- 
tured them so easily. But since the Emperor desires to 
have them, he can get them from me for any amount of 
money that he thinks they ever merit." In order not to 
humiliate the noted prisoners, a large ransom was paid, 
which Thoros ordered to be distributed to his warriors 
in the presence of the Greek emissaries who brought the 
money; and, turning to the Emperor's representatives, 
said: "I give this sum to my brave soldiers that, if need 
be, again they bring your generals to me." 

As has been already alluded to, during the reign of 
the Rubenians there was a great deal of internal distur- 
bances provoked by the Roman Catholic missionaries and 
their adherents who advocated the union of the Church 
of Armenia with that of Rome. These missionaries 
were called Uniters. 

As the Armenians suffered very much by the Moslem 
incursions, these Uniters made promises that if the Ar- 
menians should accept the supremacy of the Pope, His 
Holiness would exert his influence with the European 
sovereigns to help the Armenians against the Moslems. 
There was a faction among the Armenians who placed 
faith in such promises and were quite willing^ to sell the 
independence of their national church in consideration of 
such assistance, but the vast majority would not hear 
such bargaining. 

King Hethoum II. , who was a crafty man, endeavored 



Armenia's ordeal 25 

to please the Pope and. enlist his sympathy in support of 
his kingdom. In his efforts to gain the Pope's favor, he 
was so hypocritical that he became a monk and dissem- 
bled profound religiousness ; he feigned reluctance to rule, 
and abdicating the throne, retired into a monastery, 
seemingly to lead the life of a recluse. In the meantime 
he employed all means in his power to introduce such 
changes into the Church of Armenia, as would satisfy 
the Pope and induce him to come to his assistance a- 
gainst the Moslems. Constantine II. , the Armenian Pon- 
tiff, rebuked. Hethoum for his hypocricy, and perfidy to 
the national Church. The saintly ( !) Hethoum avenged 
himself by deposing and banishing the venerable Pontiff; 
and then he got some one else placed upon the Pontificial 
throne, that he might be able the better to operate his 
designs. 

During the "time when Hethoum had retired, into a 
monastery, one of his brothers, Thoros III., was the 
king, but it was the tricky Hethoum that actually reign- 
ed over Cilicia. After a while Hethoum and Thoros ex- 
changed their places ; Thoros entered the monastery, and. 
Hethoum once more ascended the throne. 

Noticing Hethoum's inclinations, Emperor Andronicus 
desired to have a grasp upon Hethoum, whom he consi- 
dered a convenient tool for drawing the Armenians into 
the Greek Church, and he requested that one of He- 
thoum's sisters be given in marriage to his son, Michael. 
Hethoum was quick m accepting this proposition, * and 
he degraded himself and the honor of the state so much 
as to ship to Constantinople two of his sisters, Mary and 
Thepany, fifteen ard thirteen years of age respectively, 
leaT ing Michael to pick out his choice of the two. Mary 



26 ARMENIA'S ORDEAL 

was wedded to Michael, and Thepany to another Greek 
prince; and both were reconfirmed after the Greek fa- 
shion, in 1296. The youthful Thepany died soon after 
her marriage. 

After these matrimonial alliances, Hethoum went to 
Constantinople, together with Thoros, and appointed 
Sumpad, one of his brothers, regent during his absence. 
Hethoum made this journey evidently to ascertain the 
prospects of a religious bargain with the Emperor of the 
Greeks. Hethoum's impious policy was a source of dis- 
content for his subjects, and in his absence a coup (Vetat 
was effected by the crowning of Sumpad as king of Cili- 
cia at the hands of Catholicos Gregory VII., and He- 
thoum was declared deposed. Returning to Cilicia, He- 
thoum found himself divested of his royal authority, 
and decided to apply to the Khan of the Moguls, the 
ally of the Armenians, and ask him to come and. 
reinstate him. To defeat this wicked design, the go- 
vernment was obliged to imprison Hethoum and Thoros. 
The latter died about this time, and it was said that he 
was killed. May be this was true, and may be it was 
not true and the rumor was spread by the Uniters simply 
to injure King Sumpad III. There was another rumor 
set afloat, which got into history as fact, that Hethoum's 
eyes were gouged out by order of the King ; but, after 
Hethoum's release, it was seen that his eyes were alright, 
and the Uniters gave out that he recovered his eyes by 
miracle ! — Just the man on whom God should have 
wrought a miracle ! Since the Uniters invented this story 
and got it into history as fact, they could have just as 
easily invented the fable of the murder of Thoros. 

After a reign of two years, Sumpad III. was deposed 



ARMENIA'S ORDEAL 37 

and succeeded by another brother, Constantine II. Cons- 
tantine was kind to Hethoum and released him, but the 
TJniters soon deposed Constantine and reinstated He- 
thoum II. The self-same Hethoum who some time ago 
was such a pious man that he would abdicate the throne, 
now banished both of his brothers to Constantinople that 
he might be safe against any further attempt for his de- 
position, (1300). Sumpad and Constantine were commit- 
ted to the care of the Emperor of the Greeks. They 
lived in Constantinople as prisoners, and ere long both 
of them died, — I hope by natural causes. 

The wily Hethoum kept on with his designs for Ro- 
manizing the Church of Armenia for the purpose of in- 
ducing the Pope to help him against the Moslems.* Once 

* How badly Hethoum jnust have been deceived by the Unit- 
ers regarding the moral influence of the popes upon the Euro- 
pean sovereigns!. Hethoum was making all hazardous efforts 
to gain the favor of the Pope of Rome, believing that a mere 
wink from the Pope to the European sovereigns would be suffi- 
cient to strike a fatal blow to Mohammedanism. How menda- 
cious the Uniters must have been! In Hethoum's time the pa- 
pacy had fallen to a very humiliating state. The Pope was dis- 
regarded, and he had to send to the French king bull after bull, 
expostulating that his authority was to be regarded, that he 
was the "vicar of God" (in God's absence), that "every human 
being was subject to the Roman pontiff, and to believe this was 
necessary for salvation," &c. &c. While, on the other hand, 
King Philip took one of these bulls sent by the "vicar of God" 
and got It publicly burned. Besides this, the King wrote an 
answer to the Pope, beginning his message in such manner : 
''Philip, by the grace of God, king of the French, to Boniface, 
who giveth himself out for sovereign pontiff, little or no 
greeting. Let thy Extreme Fatuity know that we be subject 
to none, &c., &c." Hethoum did not know that the Pope, on 
whom he had fixed his hopes and expectations, was undergoing 
the last stage of a prophesy pronounced upon him by his pre- 



88 -rmenia's ordeal 

more Hethoum found it necessary to abdicate, and he 
placed upon the throne his young nephew, Leon lY. 
who acted as a mere tool in his uncle's hand; and 
Hethoum himself assumed the regency, (1305). Catholi- 
cos Gregory VII. , who had taken a hand in Hethoum's 
deposition, shortly died, and a plan of reforming the 
Church was produced, the authorship of which was at- 
tributed to the deceased Pontiff. 

A convention of about forty bishops, several prominent 
monks, and many nobles, assembled in the cathedral of 
St. Sophia, in Sis, for the purpose of electing a successor 
to the deceased Catholicos. There the King and his re- 
gent proclaimed to the assemblage their intention of put- 
ting into execution the plan of reforms said to have been 
prepared by the late Pontiff. The convention feared to 
raise objections, and silence being taken for assent, the 
proposed changes were immediately ordered to be put 
into practice The order was carried out within the bor- 
ders of Cilicia, and the changes were received every- 
where with demonstrations of popular indignation; and 
the result was strife, and even bloodshed. The arbitrary 
action of the King and his regent, and their abuse of po- 
"iver, — and that in such a grave matter, — were soon de- 
nounced from the pulpits. 

The commander of the Scythian army stationed at Ana- 
zarpa, heard that Hethoum and Leon were entering into 
a league with the Europeans ; he was alarmed lest some- 
thing serious should result. He invited Hethoum and 
Leon to visit him for the purpose of conferring on some 

decessor, the infallible Pope Celestine V., in the following words: 
'Thou risest like a fox; thou wilt rule like a lion, and die like 
a dog." (See Gvdzot"^ Htsior;> o/ France^ vol, ii, pp. 120-131.) 



ARMENIA'S ORDEAL 39 

weighty affair. When Hethoum and Leon went to the 
Scythian cammander, both of them were massacred toge- 
ther with their forty attendants. 

Unfortunately for the nation, these troubles did not 
terminate here. The successors of Hethoum II. did not 
take lesson from the evil consequences of his ruinous po- 
licy. They were deceived by the Uniters regarding the 
power of the Pope, and were led to believe that the Pope 
was the mightiest ruler who commanded all the sove- 
reigns of Europe; their eyes were upon him, and they 
•were eager to persuade the people in some way to ack- 
nowledge the supremecy ot the Pope, and thus secure 
the Pope's favor, which tantalized them. And in this 
irery period the Roman papacy was in its sixty years' 
''Babylonish captivity" in Avignon. 

In striving to gain the sympathy of the popes, the 
kings of Cilicia lost the hearts of their own subjects. 
The kingdom of Cilicia had been maintained for more 
than two centuries without the aid of popes, and it could 
be maintained much longer if the kings had been wise 
enough to trust in God and have faith in their own peo- 
ple ; and to endeavor to have the confidence of the Arme- 
nians, instead of running on the fool's errand. 

Hethoum's successors sent letters, and even deputa- 
tions, to the popes in Avignon, describing their dire si- 
tuation and the urgency of immediate Christian help a- 
gainst the Moslems. The popes made promises freely, 
but could fulfil none. All they did was to send addi- 
tional missionaries to see that the Armenian Church 
would be engulfed in the Roman. 

These unprofitable negotiations not only disturbed the 
Armenian people, but also alarmed the Moslems lest the 



30 AJIMENIA'S OKDEAL 

Armenians get up an European crusade against them. 
The Moslems increased their efforts to break up the king- 
dom of Cilicia, and the incursions grew more frequent. 
The government of Cilicia had ceased to be an Arme- 
nian government, and had become a tyranny. The kings 
had become the servants of the Roman papacy, not be- 
cause they cared a jot for popery, but for the reason that 
they wanted to get the help of the popes, — the help that 
never came. The kings made every effort to make Ro- 
man Catholics out of the Armenians. They allowed 
themselves to be guided by the Uniters, and tyrannized 
upon the Church of Armenia in a manner as though the 
government was a Catholic one. In short, the people 
suffered religious persecution at the hands of the kings. 
The Catholicos had lost his significance, and having no 
temporal power, he was at the mercy of the kings. The 
people and the clergy clung fast to the national Church, 
and struggled for the preservation of its purity. They 
did this not because they knew of the incapacity of the 
popes for helping them, but for the simple reason that 
they would not have the sort of Christian help that was 
being offered, — a help w^hich could be had only by set- 
ting their conscience aside and trading religion. The 
Armenians did believe that if they should become Roman 
Catholics, the great Pope, who commanded the European 
sovereigns, would j)romptly succor them; and that their 
lot would be far better from a worldly standpoint. But 
they preferred to face the worst as the true followers of 
the blessed cross, rather than seek refuge under the 
wings of such Christians who could persecute an already 
persecuted Christian nation, and would constrain them to 
submit to their own religious authority. 



Armenia's ordeal 31 

At this time the Armenian Patriarchy of Jerusalem 
was established by Bishop Sarkis of the Holy City, in or- 
der to defend the Church against the audacious intru- 
sions of the impious kings of Cilicia, (1311). The exas- 
perated Armenians, both the military and the civilians, 
arose against the government in defense of the Church of 
Christ ''which was the price of the blood of their brave 
forefathers, and the glory of the Armenian nation," 
Within two years (1343-1345,) they killed two kings, 
namely, Constantine III. and Guidon. 

King Constantine IV. (1345-1362,) was a true Arme- 
nian, and he made every effort to save the decaying 
kingdom from its doom. He helped the Catholicos to 
call conventions to repeal and expunge all the popish 
forms and tenets which had been but recently forced into 
the Armenian churches in Cilicia by his predecessors. 
Constantine IV. did not pay attention to the bulls sent 
by the popes of Avignon, inviting the Armenian nation 
to the true path of salvation, of which the Armenians 
have had too much and had found that it led to nothing 
but perdition. The Armenian churches in Cilicia assum- 
ed their former appearance, being cleansed from all fo- 
reign additioas. An era of regeneration seemed to be 
dawning. The policy of Constantine IV. had marked 
beneficial effect upon the condition of the decrepit state, 
and the important castles of Ayas and Alexandretta, 
-which had fallen in the hands of the Mameluks some 
time since, were recovered. 

•^On the death of Constantine IV, Cilicia once more 
fell into a disturbed state. The Uniters bacame very 
active and created endless troubles regarding the succes- 
sion, which remained in suspense for three years. The 



da ARMENIA'S ORDEAL 

Uniters fought hard to get a Latin prince on the throne ; 
and Latin princes claiming relationship on their mothers' 
side with the Armenian royal family, flocked from Cyp- 
rus eager to get the crown by the help of the Roman mis- 
sionaries. The Uniters spared no efforts, imagining them- 
selves not far from ultimate success. In this struggle 
the condition of the kingdom grew worse and worse. 
Many of the conservative nobles and thousands of the 
people became so disgusted with the state of affairs that 
they forsook their beloved homes and emigrated towards 
Armenia proper and elsewhere. 

After a struggle of three years, the Uniters succeeded 
in getting upon the throne a Latin prince, Leon Lusig- 
nan of Cyprus. Leon VI. was not disposed to meddle 
with matters of religion. The end of the Cilician king- 
dom was at hand. Cilicia was enfeebled by emigration, 
and demoralized by dissension and strife. The kingdom 
could no more defend itself against the violent Moslem 
invasions. In 1374 Melik-el-Eshref Shaban, the sultan 
of the Mameluks, invaded Cilicia with an immense force. 
The country was laid waste, and the inhabitants were 
butchered without regard for sex or age. Even the 
decaying bones of the dead were not left undisturbed 
in their graves ; the savage invaders opened the tombs of 
the kings of Cilicia and taking out the bones, burned 
them up. The flourished cities Mamesdia, Adana, Tar- 
sus and Sis were transformed to ruins.* Leon VI., the 

* For so many centuries Moslem races have been the masters 
of Armenia, Asia Minor, Thrace, Macedonia, Greece, &c., and all 
through the time of their domination they have demolished and 
destroyed all the glorious works of former ages. When they 
entered these countries they found them in a highly flourished 
condition, and they reduced them to ruins. On the site of ma- 



Armenia's ordeal 33 

king, who had taken refuge in Fort Gaban, after being 
besieged for about nine months, surrendered and waa 
taken to Egypt in chains together with his queen and 
daughter, Armenian autonomy was ultimately lost, and 
Cilicia was at the mercy of her conquerors. 

Heaps of ashes were left to the victorious Uniters. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE CHURCH AS THE PRESERVER OF THE NATIONALITY. 

After the fall of the Armenian kingdom, the Catholic 
faith lost ground in Cilicia. It owed its sway to the tyr- 
anny of the kings. The Armenians could no more be 
constrained to become Roman Catholics.* After that 

ny magnificent cities now stand, if aught stands at all, groups 
of pitiful cottages and shanties. Let the Ottomans show one, 
and only one town that has been founded and flourished un- 
der their domination exclusively by Moslems. The myriads of 
dogs night and day barking all over the Empire, the harems, 
—those establishments of debauchery,— the narrow and filthy 
streets, and the still filthier hearts of government officials are 
the only glory of the Ottoman Empire. The Turks can not point 
to the palaces of the sultans as their own productions, for they 
were built by Armenian architects, Armenian skill, and with 
money squeezed out of the oppressed Christians of the Empire. 
In the face of these undeniable facts there are still found Eu- 
ropeans and Americans,— children of modern civilization,— who 
are not ashamed of themselves to come out before the world 
with a good word for the "noble Turk." 

* There is now a schismatic body of Roman Catholic Arme- 
nians who have a patriarch in Constantinople; but it is not the 
fruit of the Catholic missionaries of the XIV. century. The Ro- 
man faith was introduced among Armenians anew in the XVIII. 
century,'^ and the Catholic patriarchy of Constantinople was 



34 ARMENIA'S ORDEAL 

in all the trials of their national life, the Armenians 
clung fast to their Church. The magnetic tenacity 
•which the national Church had upon the hearts of the 
Armenians became the means of preserving their nation- 
ality in spite of the furious flood of Mohammedanism 
■which threatened to engulf those nations that came on its 
way. The Church became the focus of a powerful inter- 
nal union and the strongest bond of brotherhood where- 
by the nation was enabled to resist and survive all ca- 
lamities, although sustaining great loss. 

The Armenians looked upon their national Church as 
a covenant between themselves and their God, into 
-which they could not tolerate any outside interference; 
and it was impossible for the nation, as a whole, ever to 
entertain the idea of making use of the Church for 
worldly advantages. The Armenians preserved their 
national Church with the greatest jealousy, and the 
Church preserved them as a seperate and distinct people. 
So long as they remained faithful to the Church there 
was no fear for their commingling with the dominant 
races of a widely different religion. 

The Armenians understood Christianity as a bond bet- 
ween a brotherly union and God ; and they greatly shun- 
ned the very thought of being ruled by, or ruling other 
peoples through the instrumentality of the Church. It 
was on account of this belief that the demand of the Ho- 

founded In 1831, The Roman Catholic Armenians have sundered 
all relations with the Armenian nation, and they are so much 
alienated that they prefer to speak in Turkish rather than in the 
language of Haig, Tigrane, Abgar, and Vartan, "When asked 
"what nationality they belong to, they will answer: "I belong 
to the Catholic nation," They are styled as the Catholic nation 
Of Turkey. 



abmenia's ordeal 35 

man and Greek Churches of having jurisdiction over the 
Church of Armenia was considered outrageous and un- 
christian. The Armenians abhorred the idea of making 
Christianity the means of worldly domination, which was 
contrary to Christ's injunction: ''The princes of the 
Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are 
great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not l>e so 
among you.'''' [Matt. xx. 35-26). 

The Armenians well comprehended the spirit of the 
Saviour's commandtnent that, "Whatsoever ye would 
that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." 
They denied the right of the Roman or the Greek Church 
of having jurisdiction over the Church of Armenia, and 
they never demanded to have jurisdiction over the peo- 
ples that were converted into Christianity by Armenians. 
Various neighboring nations were converted into Chris- 
tianity by Armenian monks who would go and preach 
the gospel with every Christian self-denial, without be- 
ing backed by missionary organizations or funds, just 
like the apostles; and the Armenian Church would be 
but happy to see those peoples have their own independ- 
ent bishops and patriarchs. The Church of Armenia has 
never demanded to have jurisdiction on any of them for 
the purpose of deriving revenues therefrom.* 

* The Abyssinians are one of the nations converted into Chris- 
tianity by Armenians, and they recognize the Church of Arme- 
nia as the mother Church, yet the Church of Armenia has not 
demanded to have jurisdiction upon them. The Armenian Ca- 
tholicos does not claim to posses the patented keys of Heaven. 
The Greek and Roman Churches have been making efforts in the 
recent years to take the Abyssinians under their authority; but 
the Abyssinians still look to the Church of Armenia. The pre- 
sent Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople wears upon his 
breast a cross which is the gift of the Emperor of Abyssinia* 



36 ARMENIA'S ORDEAL 

PART SECOND. 
AMERICAN MISSIONARIES AMONG ARMENIANS. 



When nations are to perish in their sins, 
'Tis in the church the leprosy begins: 
The priest, whose office is with zeal sincere 
To watch the fountain, and preserve it clear, 
Carelessly nods and sleeps upon the brink. 
While others poison what the flock must drink; 
K: * * * * 

His unsuspecting sheep believe it pure, 
And tainted by the very means of cure, 
Catch from each other a contagious spot, 
The foul forerunner of a general rot. 

COWPER, 



CHAPTER I. 



BEGINNING THE WORK. 



After centuries of suffering at the hands of the Zoro- 
astrian fire-worshippers, the Mohammedans, the Greek 
and Roman Churches, the Armenian nation was to re- 
ceive another blow from the Christians of America. 

This last blow did not come like its various precedents 
in the shape of tyrannizing force, but rather like a wast- 
ing disease which consumes one's vital strength and 
prostrates the victim gradually to sink and die. This 
blow was the one dealt by the missionaries of the 
American Board, who entered into the home of the 



Armenia's ordeal 37 

Armenians like lambs, but tore them up like wolves. 
They created discord and schism. They set the son 
in defiance to his father; they raised the flock against 
the shepherd ; the brother against the brother. They 
taught the pious Armenian to scorn and despise what 
he had learned to be sacred and holy. The result of this 
was spiritual and moral degradation and degeneration. 
The introduction of Protestantism amorg the Armen- 
ians have had more ruinous effect on the nation than any- 
thing else ever had. Protestantism was justly branded by 
the nation with the name porod, as an abbreviation for the 
word Protestant, and meaning in the Armenian language 
leprous^ and forsooth, its effect upon the body of the 
nation was of the leprous character. 

To one who makes a close study of the history of the 
missionary work in Turkey, it will appear that the Ame- 
rican missionaries went there not to give the natives 
the Gospel, but to give them their own form of religion, 
no matter whether it would do them good or evil. 

The missionaries were determined to impose their re- 
ligion upon the people in Turkey, and knowing that 
they could not accomplish their purpose honestly, they 
employed dishonest methods, and approached to their 
victims with cunning and deceit. The missionaries of 
the American Board, before entering Turkey, started a 
printing establishment in the island of Malta, in the Me- 
diterranean, where they printed school books in the Ori- 
ental languages for circulation in Turkey. They left 
America as missionaries, but they did not begin work 
among the peoples of the East as such. They employed 
falsehood. They professed to have gone there simply 
for educational work, intending to open schools for edu- 



38 ARMENIA'S ORDEAL 

eating the native children, and to print school books. 

In Malta they had an opportunity to learn something 
about the natives of Turkey, and accordingly they laid 
their plans for the future. Their plan was to begin 
their v^ork in the disguise of promoters of education, and 
nothing more. There was no prospect for laboring a- 
mong the Mohammedans w^ithout putting their lives in 
jeopardy; and that would not do for them. Therefore, 
their attention was attracted chiefly by the Christians 
of Turkey. They meant to carry on their work among 
the Christians. But how could they get support from 
the Christians of America for the purpose of converting 
Christians from one form into another? Oh, that was 
easy enough for them: they could misrepresent the na- 
tive Christians ; they could publish to America injurious 
reports regarding their moral and religious condition; 
they could calumniate them as nominal Chris- 
tians, idolaters, heathens, and all that sort of 
thing ; they could weave their stories with menda- 
cities, and could strain the pockets of American Chris- 
tians by their artificial lamentations for the lost people 
of Turkey. 

The plan of the missionaries for their work among the 
Christians in Turkey was as follows: They were "de- 
termined not to call them [the native Christians] forth 
into opposition by a proselyting and controversial 
course,"* but to win some of them and get them into 
fighting with their own brethren. t "There is no doubt," 
they wrote from Malta, "but the Oriental churches will 
enjoy whatever benefit [ !] religious controversy is able 
to impart. * * * Let members of those churches acquire a 

* Missionary Herald for 1830, p. 117- t Miss. Her. for 1S30 p. 18. 



Armenia's ordeal 39 

perception and love of truth, [the kind of truth that 
these missionaries were going to teach,] and they will 
defend it and ATTACK whatever opposes it. The mis- 
sionary's aim should be to raise such champions among 
the people." * 

This plan, as set forth in their own words, is sufficient 
to demonstrate that the missionaries entered among the 
Christians of Turkey with mischief in their mind. They 
were going to win a few persons and use them as cat's 
paw. They were going to create strife and conflict a- 
mong the natives and then fish in the troubled waters. 
Divide et impera was their policy. There was no such 
doctrine in the Gospel that the Armenians possessed, 
but perhaps the version which the missionaries held in 
their hands taught them so. The Gospel which the Ar- 
menians acknowledged taught them: "Blessed are the 
peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of 
God." Let the reader think for himself whose children 
would be those that break up the peace and create strife. 

Before starting the first mission in Constantinople, 
Messrs. Smith and D wight, two missionaries of the 
American Board, traveled in Asia Minor and Armenia for 
the purpose of learning the general condition of the peo- 
ples living therein ; not to study their needs, but to spy 
their weaknesses and accordingly contrive means for 
storming their fortifications. Their eyes were set on the 
Catholicos in Etchmiadzin even before starting on their 
journey from Malta. If they could only win the head 
of the Armenians in some way! They went as far as 
Etchmiadzin to see the Holy Pontiff. The monks of the 
great monastery of Etchmiadzin received these strangers 

* Missionary Herald for 1830, p. 178. 



40 ARMENIA'S ORDEAL 

with the kind hospitality peculiar to the Armenians, es- 
pecially in those times. The disguised missionaries were 
accommodated with lodgings and meals. They expressed 
their desire to have an audience of the Pontiff, but Ca- 
tholicos Eprem would not see them. The trick which 
these missionaries were going to play, was already played 
out in the neighborhood of Etchmiadzin. Some years 
prior to this (1830) German missionaries had gone to 
Shoosha on the pretext of converting the Mohammedans. 
They made the acquaintance of the Armenians, and pro- 
posed them to open a school for the Armenian children; 
the unsuspecting Armenians consented to this thankfully. 
The school was opened and the service of Boghos Var- 
tabed, a learned monk, was secured to teach. Ere long 
they wanted to introduce into the school some novel re- 
ligious teachings; the Vartabed (monk) discovered that 
these foreigners meant to pervert the Armenians from 
their faith while working in the innocent guise of pro- 
moters of educational work, and he left them warning 
his people of their real object. 

Dwight and Smith were disappointed in their scheme. 
They had but one opportunity to see the Holy Pontiff 
from a distance, and that was on the Sunday following 
their arrival, when his Holiness officiated in the Cathe- 
dral of Etchmiadzin. The disappointed missionaries 
broke their vengeance on the Catholicos by publishing 
in the Missionary Herald a frantic attack on the solemn 
religious services which they witnessed without under- 
standing them. On this occasion they wrote the follow- 
ing : 

"The spirit of the monastery of Etchmiazin differs but 
little, if at all, from that of the Papal See at Rome, 



Armenia's ordeal 41 

■^ * * In Turkey we imagine that tlie Armenians, at pre- 
sent, feel but little the authority of the patriarch at 
Etchmiazin, [-because the spirit of the monastery at 
Etchmiadzin was not like that of the Papal See at 
Rome,] and before long they may be entirely separate 
from his control, [and fall under the control of the mis- 
sionaries, eh?] We confidently hope that the Lord may 
open a way [by breaking up the authority of the Catho- 
licos or something of that kind,] by which successful 
missionary efforts will be carried on among the Armen- 
ians in that country," * 

Returning from this journey, the missionaries of the 
American Board started a mission in Constantinople. 
Goodell and Dwight were the first missionaries that es- 
tablished themselves in Constantinople, — together with 
their families, of course. The missionaries always receive 
good salaries and, as all commodities are very cheap in 
Turkey, they can afford to live in high style. They 
concealed their mission and their object of proselyting 
the natives into a new form of religion, and lived in 
Constantinople like gentlemen of leisure. They began 
to enter into relations of a purely personal character 
with the natives. Armenians who excel their compatriots 
of other nationalities t in their hospitality and kindness 
to strangers, especially to Christians, were soon befriend- 

* Missionary Herald for 1831. p. 246. 

t One's nationality is distinguished in Turkey by' the church 
and religion one belongs to. Those who accept the Moslem 
faith become Turks, and those who join the Greek Church are 
recognized as Greeks. Those who join the Armenian Church 
become nat\iralized Armenians. However, it is of very seldom 
occurrence that an alien should join the Church of Armenia; for 
Armenians make no effort at all to win others into their 



42 Armenia's ordeal 

ed by the missionaries, while the Greeks, who were not 
less crafty in religious matters than these missionaries, 
looked on them suspiciously. The doors of the highest 
Armenian society in Constantinople were thrown open 
before them. These chelebees (gentlemen) were cordially 
received by priest and laymen alike ; and the Armenian 
Patriarch of Constantinople, who, besides his exalted 
ecclesiastical function, is the civil head of the Armenians 
throughout the Ottoman Empire, became one of their 
sincere friends on whom they could call whenever they 
wished. 

The cautiousness with which the missionaries acted 
in the beginning lest the natives suspect the true nature 
of their intentions, is peculiar to thieves. They intro- 
duced themselves to the Armenians as Christian clergy- 
men from America who had taken so deep an interest in 
them that they had left their home and had come from 
the other side of the world to live with the Armenians 
and promote education among them. Armenians being 
a people who give high value to education, and there 
being at that time an educational movement on foot a- 
mong them, these presumed Philarmenians were receiv- 
ed with delight ; and some Armenian priests even offered 
them pecuniary assistance for the printing of the New 
Testament which was used in the Armenian schools as a 
text-book. The missionaries had a printing establish- 
ment where they printed parts of the New Testament, 
the Psalms, school books and religious tracts of a neu- 

Church. Armenians, as a race, all being in the national Church 
preserved their racial distinction through the Church. Armen- 
ians are a race, but the Turks are not. The Turks are a mix- 
ture of very many varieties of races and their nationality con- 
sists in their religion. 



ARMENIA'S ORDEAL 43 

tral character, containing nothing objectionable to the 
Armenians, as they did not treat of doctrines. But the 
missionaries, in their reports published in the Missionary 
Herald^ speaking of the priests offering them money for 
the printing of the Scriptures, give the misleading im- 
pression that the priests did it because they recognized 
that their people were in need of being evangelized by 
the missionaries, and gave their donations for that end. 

The missionaries attended the Armenian churches, 
particularly the cathedral of the Holy Mother of the 
Lord, opposite the Armenian Patriarchate at Koum-Ka- 
pou. The Armenian clergy evidently had the impression 
that these strangers had taken such a liking to the Ar- 
menians that, in course of time, they would join the Ar- 
menian Church and become Armenians. The missiona- 
ries, in order to gain the perfect confidence of the Ar- 
menians, seem to have encouraged such expectations. 

On New Year's Day, 1835, (O. S.,) the missionaries 
Goodell and Dwight attended religious services in the 
cathedral at Koum-Kapou. Patriarch Stephen, who 
was officiating at the altar, sent word to the two Ame- 
ricans inviting them to call on him at the Patriarchate 
after the services were over. This was a particular 
honor to these Americans; for the Patriarch would be 
very busy on New Year's Day receiving distinguished 
persons, and could not receive every body. The behavior 
of the missionaries towards the Armenians and their 
church was of a nature that made the Patriarch quite 
confident that they were going to become Armenians by 
joining the Church ; therefore, he had made up his mind 
regarding their future : — he meant to receive them into 
the Church not as mere laymen, but also as clergymen,. 



44 ARMENIA'S ORDEAL 

as they already were ; so that, they might the better be 
useful in their educational efforts. The Patriarch seems to 
have recogflized their clerical ordination to be valid ; for 
he treated them as he would treat the clergy of other 
sister Churches. On one occasion a bishop invited one 
of the missionaries present in the church to take an ec- 
clesiastical mantle on himself; the missionary declined, 
which the Armenians attributed to his modesty. The 
poor Patriarch ! he took these men for the honest gentle - 
men that they appeared to be. But how could he im- 
agine that those strangers were disguised missionaries 
with religious designs, since they concealed their real 
object and appeared like men who spoke but the truth. 
The missionaries that day called on the Patriarch and 
were received with kindnSss. Taking their leave from 
His Holiness, Messrs. Goodell and D wight next called 
on the Vicar of the Patriarch and had a pleasant conver- 
sation in the course of which Mr. Goodell told to the 
Vicar that Mr. Dwight had already acquired the know- 
ledge of the Armenian language and had altogether hecome 
nn Armenian^ and that it was time for the Vicar to take 
him and baptize him. The Vicar was not surprised ; he 
knew it was going to come to this ; he replied that the 
Armenian Church accepted Mr. Dwight without bap- 
tising him anew, the former baptism being recognized 
to be valid. They had a little more talk and before they 
left, the Vicar turned to Mr. Dwight and informed him 
that, by and by, he was to become a preacher to the 
Armenians. * 

*"We afterwards called upon the waheel [vicar]. Mr. Goodell 
told him that as I have now learned the Armenian language, 1 
had become altogether an Armenian. 'And you,' added Mr. G.. 



Armenia's ordeal 45 

The Church of Armenia has no formalities for initia- 
ting one who wishes to join the Church. If one goes to 
an Armenian clergyman and declares himself to be an 
Armenian, — an Armenian in sentiment and belief, — and 
wishes to join the Armenian Church, the clergyman re- 
ceives him, and if he is not already baptized in any o- 
ther Christian Church, baptizes him, and that makes him 
an Armenian and a child of the Church of Armenia. If 
the convert is already baptized in any other Christian 
Church, the verbal declaration of the priest made to the 
convert that he is accepted by the Church is sufficient to 
make him a child of the Church. There are no formali- 
ties for receiving any one in the Church; there is no 
church membership. The Armenians are called the child- 
ren of the Church, not members. 

Now, the conversation which the missionaries had 
with the Vicar, legally made Mr. Dwight a child of the 
Church of Armenia-, — a convert. Mr. Goodell told the 
Vicar that Mr. Dwight had learned the Armenian and 
had become an Armenian altogether, and that it was 
time that he should be baptized and formally made an 
Armenian. The Vicar having no doubt of their hones- 
ty, declared Mr. Dwight accepted without baptizing 
anew. That finished the business. Dwight was pro- 
posed to be admitted in the Church and he was received 
by the Church. 

'must take him and baptise Mm.' 'By no means,' replied the 
wakeel, 'we accept him without. The Greeks would baptise 
him again, but with us It is unnecessary.' We had a familiar 
conversation for some time, when the wakeel, with a thoughtful 
and peculiar expression of countenance, turned to me and said 
'You will, by and by, become a preacher to the Armenians.' " 
— Rev. H .G. O. Dwight, Missionary Herald for 1836. p. 47. 



46 ARMENIA'S ORDEAL 

What was the meaning of this mischief? A mission- 
ary joined the Church of Armenia, in Constantinople; 
and other missionaries went about in Syria, wearing 
white turbans on their heads, the emblem of Moham- 
medan theologians, for which they were arrested by the 
Moslem religious authorities and were rebuked for their 
hypocrisy. * 

After the conversion of Mr. Dwight the visits of Ar- 
menian priests to these Americans were more frequent. 
One of the Americans had already joined the Church, as 
the Armenians believed, and the conversion of the o- 
thers was in prospect. Armenian priests visited them 
often with a view to instil into their minds the Christian 
truth as recognized by the Church of Armenia ; of which, 
indeed, these missionaries were in great need, and subse- 
quently showed their incapacity to comprehend the true 
spirit of Christianity, which teaches us to sacrifice our 
own interests for the benefit of our brethren; whereas, 
as it will be seen, they pursued a course to the contrary. 

Such visits paid to the disguised missionaries by Ar- 
menian priests and laymen, under these circumstances, 
were reported in the Missionary Herald as though the 
visitors were coming to them to learn of them the Chris- 
tian truth. But this was an untruth and an impossibi- 
lity since the missionaries had not introduced them- 
selves as the teachers of any religion ; and the fact that 
these visits were discontinued and the personal friends 
grew cold as soon as the real designs of the missionaries 
were discovered is alone sufficient to disprove those mis- 
leading reports, and to evince that the visitors were not 
coming to learn religion from them. 

* See Missionary Herald for 1825, p. 24. 



Armenia's ordeal 47 

Under such circumstances the first missionaries made 
their survey of their surroundings, and it did not take 
them very long to determine that the Armenians were a 
soft and a simple people of whom they could make an 
"easy job;" while the Jews, the Mohammedans and 
the Greeks looked on them suspiciously, and kept 
themselves aloof. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE MODE OF EVANGELIZATION. 

The highest aim of religion is, according to my con- 
ception, to help a man to lead a pure life, to restrain 
him in the destructive passions of the body, to ennoble 
and elevate him spiritually. The religion which fails 
to accomplish this noble purpose is bound to turn a 
curse, for "he that gathereth not with me scattereth 
abroad." The Church of Armenia had accomplished 
this purpose more than any other Church that I know of. 

The plain, pure, clear and conscientious life led by 
the average Armenian, before the American missionaries 
made their entry among them, was something envi- 
able , and was of a nature that these missionaries 
should have left undisturbed had they been actuated in 
their undertaking by the spirit of Christianity; and 
they should have centered their efforts upon the 
Mohammedans, never fearing the obstacles and perils 
that might come on their path, like the true followers 
of the Cross. 

It is out of my line to essay to prove that the reli- 



48 AKMENIA'S ORDEAL 

gious doctrines maintained by the Church of Armenia 
are in full harmony with the Gospel, and to contend that 
the teachings of the missionaries were not evangelical. 
I will simply take up the results of missionary labors 
and examine whether they have helped the Armenians 
to moral elevation or degradation. It is not what one 
professes that makes one a true Christian, but if one 
practices the commandments of the Saviour. Profession 
is dead witout practice. 

The Christian life which the Armenians led at the 
time was not in need of modification or reformation a* 
the hands of the missionaries. Yet the missionaries 
were determined to Protestantize the Armenians, and 
continually they planned to carry their object into effect, 
unmindful of the ruinous effect it would have on the Ar- 
menian nation by creating schism and strife among 
them. 

Protestantism is a revolution — a revolution which was 
the consequence of religious oppression and arbitrary mis- 
rule in the church. A revolution may be a good remedy 
to cure a bad government, but a revolution against a 
good government is an unjustifiable crime. 

The Church of Armenia is constituted entirely different 
from the Roman Church ; it is almost of a democratic 
character, both in principle and in spirit. The Armenian 
clergy have been the good shepherds of the flock — not 
arbitrary rulers ; it is the people who choose the clergy, 
and a man is ordained to the priesthood only by the 
unanimous approval of the people. The relation of the 
people and the ecclesiastic in the Church of Armenia has 
been very much like that between the son and his father. 
To incite the son to rebel against his father, who has al- 



Armenia's ordeal 49 

ways sought his welfare, is not anything to meet the ap- 
proval of God or of men. 

But the American missionaries were not inclined to take 
these circumstances into consideration. They had come 
to dress the Armenians with a garb which was made for 
a people of different form and condition, and could not 
fit the Armenians. They had come to impose their form 
of religion on the people in Turkey, and they meant to 
make prey of those who could be captured with the least 
effort, and the Armenians were marked out as the easiest 
game. 

During their friendly intercourse with the Armenians 
the missionaries sowed their seed with cunning, and 
gradually they gave larger and larger pills to their ac- 
quaintances. They gently contended that they did not 
think it was essential for salvation to believe in this, and 
that, and the other ; and gradually they won a few Ar- 
menians whom they taught to disclaim all that was in the 
National Church, and to take only the Gospel, the Word 
of God, and read it and follow it as they understood it 
(of course by the interpretation of the missionaries) . This 
sowing of seed was done chiefly among the poorer and 
ignorant classes, and the missionaries were assisted in the 
work by two young Armenians in their pay. The igno- 
rant men were flattered that they were intelligent enough 
to understand the Gospel, and that it was not necessary 
for them to mind the priests, who merely sought their 
own personal interests and wished to keep the people in 
ignorance. The ignorant, being flattered that they pos- 
sessed sound judgment, took the Gospel in their hands, 
not prepared to understand its contents, but to seek how 
they could criticise their mother Church, thereby demon- 



50 Armenia's ordeal 

strating their intelligence and mental superiority over the 
priests, who were revered by the masses and who paid 
reverence to the Church. 

Many of thfe poor were easily won, who flocked around 
the missionaries in expectation of pecuniary benefit.-^ 
The missionaries had plenty of money, and those who 
came in touch with them could in some way be benefitted 
by them ; at least they could be employed by them as 
servants and cooks, (for the missionaries always live in 
high style,) compositors, printers, bookbinders, book 
peddlers, teachers and preachers, &c. 

The mask at last came off their fdces, and it was un- 
derstcod that these foreigners had come not to join the 
Church of Armenia, but to tear it into pieces by inciting 
the flock to rebel against the shepherd. The leading 
Armenians and the clergy were sadly disappointed in 
them, and they cooled off in their friendly relations with 
the missionaries. 

TI e missionaries found success chiefly among the igno- 
rant, and set them in defiance to the mother Church. 
Their converts began to preach the "truth" to the Armen- 
ian people. They had their own mode of preaching. 
They criticized and abused the Church in foul language 
and denounced everything that was in the Church. And 

*Mr. Dwight wrote at the time :— " Many, no doubt, claim to be 
Protestants, who have very little acquaintance either with them- 
selves or the truth [he means Protestantism] ; but then this is a 
first step, and an important one." (^Missionary Herald for 1836, p. 
49.) Now, what was the motive of those many in professing to be 
Protestants when they knew nothing about Protestantism ? 
Surely, they could not be seeking truth. Gospel, or anything of 
the kind ; and they could not have any good motive. Yet this was 
a first step and an important one from the missionary point of 
view. 



Armenia's ordeal 51 

as they were ignorant, they knew no limit wherein to con- 
fine themselves, and began to preach in a clumsy manner. 
They were suddenly divested of their faith, but were not 
clothed with a new one. Their Christianity and piety 
consisted in the abuse and the denunciation of the mother 
Church. They had become like demoniacs ; they would 
go about the city and engage in conversation with any 
Armenian, whether a tinker or a tailor, a peddler or a 
sailor, and would question him as to the evangelicality 
of this or that doctrine maintained by the Church of Ar- 
menia. When they found a man who was not familiar 
with the contents of the gospel so much as to be able to 
discuss theological questions, they would ridicule him for 
blindly trusting the priests ; and if they met a man who 
was disinclined to discuss religion he would be insulted 
as an ignorant idolator. 

I will recount some of the innumerable impudences in- 
dulged in by these converts in ' ' preaching the Gospel " : 

One of the leading converts asked of an Armenian 
whether the images of Christ, the Virgin Mary, the Apos- 
tles and Saints adorning the altar and the walls of the 
churches were sacred, and receiving answer in the affirm- 
ative, he asked : ' ' Then how is it that the rats gnaw 
them ?" The Armenian was surprised to hear such a 
crazy question, and was struck dumb. " I tell you what 
those images are good for," added the converted Protest- 
ant, ' ' they are mere canvas, and good to be used as lining 
in my shoes ; they would serve to keep my feet dry." 

Another convert spoke of the cross laughingly and 
said : 

' ' Pooh ! pooh ! pooh ! The cross ! the cross ! What 
is it? A mere piece of wood! All it is good for is to 



52 An:\vENiA s ordeal 

build a fire with."* The same man denounced the Arme- 
nians for kissing the Gospel in the Church after the ser- 
vices are over, and called them idolators for paying reve- 
rence to a mere book. He said: '' The book is nothing 
to kiss. All we v^ant it for is for its contents. When I 
am through with reading it, this is what I would do."i 
And saying this he laid down the Bible and sat upon it 
to convince the Armenians that there was nothing about 
the book to call for reverence. There are Armenian 
Protestants in Turkey who will be shocked to hear that 
the Americans perform such heathen- rites as kissing the 
Bible in the courts. 

Other converts preached that the communion bread was 
no better than any other bread, and after the congrega- 

*Many years ago a small Protestant meeting house was built in 
Hass-Keuy, a suburb of Constantinople, and some of the church- 
members thought it appropriate that a cross should be placed on 
the gable to show that the building was a Christian house of wor- 
ship. In the Protestant churches in Turkey generally the mem- 
bers are divided into two parties, namely : the popular party and 
the missionary party. The former maintains that the people have 
rights of their own in the affairs of the Church ; and the latter, 
who are the obsequious servants of the missionaries, do only as 
the missionaries would have them to do. The missionary party 
in this Church opposed the planting of a cross on their meeting 
house, on the ground that it was an idol. They had a hot iight 
over it. This trouble has arisen many a time in many places. I 
hoped it helped them for their spiritual and moral elevation, and 
increased their brotherly love. 

The missionaries did not bring from America this contempt for 
the cross ; they borrowed it from the Turks, who call the cross 
an idol and the Christians Idolators for paying reverence to it. 
The Christians of America recognize the cross as the emblem of 
Christianity ; and the Presbyterians and Congregationalists, to 
which denominations these missionaries belong, also recognize 
the cross and plant it on their churches. But there are Protest- 
ant Armenians in Turkey who would not believe it. 



Armenia's ordeal 53 

tion partaking of the communion, if any of the bread was 
left over, it could be thrown to the dogs as well as any 
other bread. 

Another said in the face of the Patriarch that the cross 
which the Armenians so much prized was of no more val- 
ue to him than any other timber piled in the lumber 
yards. 

Another one, when shown that those doctrines main- 
tained by the Church of Armenia, which he ignorantly 
attacked, were in harmony with the precepts of the Gos- 
pel, said : ' ' Oh, nonsense ! Never mind the Gospel ; that 
doctrine is not essential to salvation. I know what I am 
talking about, and whoever speaks against me the same 
speaks against the Holy Ghost," &c., &c., &c.* 

Thus the most ignorant became authorities in theology 
— in their own estimation — and continually discussed the- 
ology and attacked the Church in everything, t None of 

*That Protestantism in Turkey has not much improved in these 
respects is demonstrated by the testimony of an Armenian Prot- 
estant pastor now living in Worcester, Mass., who a few years 
ago published a pamphlet in Armenian, in which the following 
paragraph occurs : 

"I feel very sorry and am ashamed as I remember the pulpits 
in the [Protestant] meeting houses in our country, especially in 
the villages. On them have appeared, and still are seen, ignorant 
men, inexperienced young fellows, and sometimes even boys. On 
them appear childish men, ignorant of [religious] doctrines and 
of truth. * * * on those pulpits such persons speak novel and 
self-created things— novel superstitions. I have personally seen 
on them men dancing like buffoons, crushing the pulpit with their 
feet and hands, roaring like mad beasts ; teaching what is incom- 
prehensible even to themselves, and what are out of one's 
thoughts and understanding ; and making even such utterances 
which are not short of swearing."— Rev. H. G. Barakian, Ught and 
Darkness^ pp. 86-87. 

+The Armenians were no Christians according to these con- 



54 abmenia's ordeal 

the converts considered himself too ignorant to discuss 
religious doctrines. 

Apostle Paul says *'The letter killeth but the spirit 
giveth life." But the Americain missionaries clung to the 
letter and discarded the spirit, and behold the result ! 

With such fanatic hostility the new converts daily at- 
tacked and abused the Church of Armenia all over the 
city ; in the cafes, in the market places, in the streets and 
in the houses. These profanations of the sanctities of 
the Church excited and exasperated the persecuted Ar- 
menians, and, had they been like other peoples, blood 
would have flowed freely in the streets of Constantinople ; 
but Christian meekness would not permit them to resort 
to violence. The Armenian clergy were alarmed lest some 
of their flock should lose their temper and a serious con- 
flict break out, for they knew that it would be followed 
with fierce measures on the part of the tyrannical govern- 
ment for the suppression of the disorder, and then the in- 
nocent and the guilty would suffer alike. In order to 
prevent any outbreak, the Armenian clergy continually 
admonished their flocks to keep aloof from the Protest- 
verts, and they were called by these fanatics with the nicknames 
Mashdotzagan (Mashdotzists), after Mesrob Mashdotz, an emi- 
nent theologian of the V. century ; Gregorian and Lousaworcha- 
gan (Illuminatorist) after Gregory the Illuminator, The nick- 
name Lousaworchagan was used so much that gradually it be- 
came the acknowledged appellation of those Armenians who 
remained faithful to the mother Church,andlike the name Quaker, 
originally given in reproach and now the acknowledged name of 
the Friends, the name Lousaworchagan is no more a name of 
reproach. However, the Church of Armenia bears no such name 
as a Church, and her children are to be called nothing but Armen- 
ian Christians. The American missionaries have a special liking 
to calling them Gregorians, and still style them as such. These 
names are but mementoes of Protestant fanaticism. 



Armenia's ordeal ' 55 

ants and have no intercourse with them, lest they be 
given oppoi-tunity to exasperate the Armenians of the 
National Church. 

While the Armenian clergy were making all efforts to 
prevent troubles, the American missionaries, on the other 
hand, would incite their converts to go and '' preach the 
truth," even though it may end in serious trouble and 
their (the converts') banishment by the government.* 

The missionaries meanwhile would send reports to 
America stating that there was a great evangelical revi- 
val going on among the Armenians, but the bigotted Ar- 
menian clergy were persecuting the Protestant converts 
by not allowing their flocks to have any intercourse 
with them. 

The leading Armenians of the capital, bankers, archi- 
tects, &c., were deeply grieved and much displeased by 
the disturbances created by the missionaries, and were 
dissatisfied with Patriarch Stephen because of his mild 
character, for which reason he was called Stephen the 
Dove. They considered it essential for the preservation 
of public peace that the Patriarch should adopt some 
strong measures against the revilers of the National 

*The following is from the journal of the mission in Constanti- 
nople : 

" Mr. O., an Armenian fi'om Constantinople [proper], called on 
Mr. Dwight. * * * a single man, he said, can do nothing. He 
may try to communicate enlightened sentiments to others, but he 
stands alone, and if he is the means of effecting any individual 
reform he is in continual danger of being sent to the gallies, or 
into banishment. Ans. [By Mr. Dwight]. 'Let him go into ban- 
ishment, and there, in imitation of the Apostles, let him preach 
the Gospel.' " — Missionary Herald ior 1837, p. 201. 

The missionaries knew how to say bad things in good words. 
They can curse and swear by praying. 



50 Armenia's ordeal 

Church. Accordingly, they invited Archbishop Hagopos, 
of Marsovan, to go to Constantinople, and subsequently 
he was appointed adviser to the Patriarch, 

Ligorius, the Patriarch of the Greeks, anathemized the 
faith of the missionaries, and Archbishop Hagopos also 
denounced the same from the pulpit of the Cathedral in 
Koum-Kapou. The American missionaries resorted to 
sophistry, and raised the cry of ' ' Persecution ! " They 
went to Sir Stratford Canning (afterwards Sir Stratford 
de Redcliffe), the British Ambassador to the Porte, and 
complained of the Armenian and Greek Patriarchs with 
their unquestionable truthfulness( !) The British Ambas 
sador, without investigating the matter, went forthwith 
to the Porte and protested against the two Patriarchs. 
The Turkish Government, with its arbitrary misrule, was 
too glad to inflict punishment on ' ' Christian dogs, " on 
the complaint of other " Christian dogs," and it took ad- 
vantage of this opportunity. Within four days the Porte 
severely censured the Armenian Patriarch and deposed 
the Patriarch of the Greeks. Thus, the Christian mis- 
sionaries not only raised brother against brother, but also 
took advantage of the domination of a tyrannical govern- 
ment and incited it to trample on the rights of its Chris- 
tian subjects by deposing their Patriarch.* 

*To illustrate how the missionaries would take advantage of the 
rule of an unjust government, and would impel the government 
to add to its oppression of the Christians while they were giving 
out that they suffered persecution at the hands of the Armenian 
nominal Christians, I translate an extract from the late Prof. 
Berberian's " History of the Armenians," treating of a case which 
occurred fourteen years after the Protestants were seperated 
from the nation and had been constituted as a seperate national 
community without any claims on the properties of the Armen 
ian nation. Prof. Berberian has served as secretary of the Ar- 




ARMENIAN BISHOP DELIVERING SERMON DURING MASS. 



ARMENIA'S ORDEAL 57 

Througli the efforts of the missionaries, and by the as- 
sistance of the British Ambassador and the American 
representative, the Protestant converts of various nation- 

menian Patriarchate in Constantinople for about twenty-five 
years, and therefore he must be a good authority ; he writes : 

" About this time [i860] an Armenian Protestant, named Miri- 
Kelam Garabed, died, and the Protestant Armenians wanted to 
bury his body in the Armenian cemetery at Edirneh-Kapousou, 
[the property of the Armenian Church]. The Armenian people 
knew him as a blasphemer who in his lifetime daily reviled the 
Armenian Church and nation, calling them house of idols andidol- 
ators respectively, and who declared himself to be an apostle of 
Christ, claiming that he had seen Christ, and had been 
ordained by Him to preach the Gospel, in the man- 
ner that Paul was, and who made other hellish utterances. 
The Armenian people, being unable to tolerate this, arose in a 
great multitude and did not allow the burial in their cemetery, 
choosing to die for the honor of the nation rather than receive the 
blasphemer of the Virgin Mother of the Lord in their holy 
grounds. 

"And as the disturbance augmented the representatives of 
England andjAmerica intervened on behalf of the Protestants, 
and they sent their dragomans to the Armenian Patriarchate, 
who came and requested of the Patriarch, with bitter complaint, 
that he should permit the burial of the dead man in the Armenian 
cemetery. But Patriarch Sarkis could not grant this request on 
account of the public agitation. He foresaw that the strife would 
come to the highest pitch, and he resolved to face even death for 
the honor of the holy Church and of the nation. Then the repre- 
sentatives protested to the Sublime Porte. Riza Pacha, the Min- 
ister of War, and Mehmed Pacha, the Minister of Police, went to 
the cemetery with numerous troops and policemen. Patriarch 
Sarkis also went to the cemetery to defend the nation's rights, 
and by his wisdom and amiability he appeased the anger of the 
Minister of War, who was threatening to disperse the crowd of 
Armenians by opening fire upon them. * * * Then seeing that 
because of one dead man thousands were prepared to lay down 
their lives in defense of their canons, the Minister of War confer- 
red with Mehmed Pacha, and they selected a corner without the 
border of the cemetery for the burial of the corpse."— Prof. Ave- 
dis Berberian, History of the Armeniatis^ pp. 384-385. 



58 ARMENIA'S ORDEAL 

alities secured a charter from the Sultan, in 1846, consti- 
tuting the converts of the missionaries in Turkey as a 
new national community, independent of all other relig- 
ious bodies in Turkey, and to be recognized by the name 
Protestant Millet (Protestant Nation). 

The name Armenian was discarded by these converts. 
The Protestant Millet consisted of the Armenian, Jewish, 
Greek, Turkish, Persian, Syrian and all other sorts of 
converts of the missionaries.* These various foreign ra- 
ces, through this schism, naturally sundered all relations 
with their own respective races and nationalities, and 
were mixed up with each other through intermarriage. 
And this was the newly created Protestant nation; — a 
mixture of the alienated children of half a dozen widely 
different races. But in this mixture the Armenian ele- 
ment being the largest in proportion, the others were di- 
gested, and the Protestant Millet became nothing but a 
schismatic body of Armenians corrupted by foreign 
blood. 



*The missionaries were not encouraged in their mission work 
among the Mohammedans and Jews, and after making hardly a 
score of converts of them in about as many years, they gave up 
that field and centered their labors on the Christians. Their ef- 
forts among the Greeks, also, were of little avail. Thej^ won sev- 
eral thousands of Armenians, but during the past 25 years that 
also has stopped. They will tell you that their efforts had im- 
mense influence on the Mohammedans morally, but don't you be- 
lieve them. 



Armenia's oedeal 59 



CHAPTER IIL 

SOME RESULTS OF MISSIONARY WORK, 

Like a rock precipitated from the summit of a lofty 
peak, rolling and rolling down with great velocity, of 
which there is no telling where it may stop. Protestant- 
ism in Turkey could not stop anywhere. It kept on 
rolling down — to the great sorrow of the missionaries. 

The missionaries taught these people to rebel against 
their Church and traditions, in order to take them under 
their own rule; but rebellion having become their in- 
stinct, they could not meekly bear the missionary yoke, 
especially since they did not find it to be an easy one. 
The missionaries denounced sacerdotal rule, yet they at- 
tempted to rule over their converts like infallible popes. 
They would not recognize a Pope, but each of them was 
a pope in himself. 

There was continual friction between the native Prot- 
estant churches and the missionaries, and disputes and 
quarrels were of frequent occurrence. The missionaries 
demanded to have their own way with the churches be- 
cause they had the money, while the churches demanded 
regard for their own rights. 

I shall recount an incident of this character to show 
the Christian spirit of the missionaries and the noble 
work of evangelization they are carrying on in Turkey 
among the ' ' nominal Christians, " as they style the Ar- 
menians in their truthful ( ! ) reports. 

About thirty years ago the Protestant Church of Lan- 



60 ARMENIA'S OBDEAL 

ga, at Constantinople, was the foremost of its kind in the 
Ottoman Empire. In 1868 the pastor of this Church took 
leave of absence for an indefinite period for the purpose 
of making a journey to the United States of America, 
The Church was to have a temporary preacher until the 
return of its pastor. The missionaries desired either 
Rev. Mugurditch Kiretchjian or Rev. Avedis Constan- 
tian to take the place, because these two were obedient 
to the will of the missionaries, and for that very reason 
they were unpopular among the Protestants. The mis- 
sionaries presented to the Church of Langa the names of 
three preachers from which the Church was to select one. 
Two of the candidates were the above-mentioned preach- 
ers, and the third was Rev. Stephen Utujian, a man whom 
the missionaries did not like and were quite confident 
that the Langa community also would not have him. His 
name was put on the list simply to mislead the church- 
members that the missionaries were noti. /O very anxious 
for the election of either of the other two. Besides pre- 
senting the names of these three candidates, the mission- 
aries particularly suggested to some leading members of 
the Church that if they should not approve of Kiretchjian, 
Constantian would be the best man for them to choose. 

But when a secret ballot was cast by the church-mem- 
bers, somehow or other it so happened that Utujian was 
elected, to the astonishment and embarrassment of the 
missionaries. The missionaries were excited upon this 
unexpected result, and declared that this election must 
be annulled and a second ballot should be taken, thereby 
intimating their disapproval of Utujian. After a long 
dispute the Church consented to ballot a second time. 
Again Utujian was their choice. This time the mission- 



Armenia's ordeal 61 

aries declared that since the Church would persist in 
electing Utujian, they would not pay his salary as 
preacher (a large portion of the pastor's salary being paid 
by the missionaries because of the poverty of the church- 
members) . 

Desiring to bring about an amicable settlement of the 
trouble, Mr. S. M. Minasian, a Protestant merchant, of- 
fered to pay the preacher's salary out of his own purse. 
Mr. Minasian could not imagine that this would offend 
the good missionaries ; but, unfortunately, it did offend 
them. The missionaries were exasperated, and declared 
that the church building was bought by them and that 
therefore it was their own private property, and that the 
congregation had no right to use it. 

The congregation took this for an outburst of tempo- 
rary loss of temper, and could not think that these evan- 
gelists could be 80 mischievous as that. But on the follow- 
ing Sunday those who went first to the Church for the 
morning service were surprised to see some sort of seal 
on the door. This seemed to the church-members some- 
thing too ridiculous to be taken seriously. True it was 
that the building was bought by the missionaries, but it 
was with the money given to the American Board by the 
Christian people of America to be used for the Protest- 
ants in Turkey. They opened the door and went in for 
the morning service. Soon after the service was begun 
Mr. Herrick, one of the missionaries, marched into the 
Church at the head of a squad of Turkish police, and he 
directed the policemen to arrest those who had come to 
worship, charging them with breaking into his own 
house, although the Church was not Mr. Herrick's own 
house anymore than it was anybody else's. The church- 



63 Armenia's ordeal 

members were seized and clapped in prison, and this 
ended that Sunday's morning service. The church-mem- 
bers were released afterwards, and they began to hold 
their Sunday meetings in a house, surrendering the church 
edifice to the missionaries. 

Let the reader imagine what effect this missionary per- 
secution must have had on the minds of the Armenian 
"nominal Christians." This event shocked not only 
Constantinople but also it was re-echoed in America, and 
the Church Union, the organ of Rev. Henry "Ward Beech- 
er, strongly condemned the missionaries, and published a 
series of strong articles on the subject. 

There were two liberal minded missionaries in Turkey 
who expressed their opinion that the native Protestant 
Churches should be allowed to freely exercise the right 
of electing their pastors, and that they should not be tyr- 
annized by the missionaries. These two liberal mission- 
aries were Dr. Henry J. Yan Lennep and Dr. Cyrus Ham- 
lin, the founder of Roberts College, in Constantinople. 
These two were punished by the intolerant missionaries 
for encouraging the rebellion of the native Protestant 
Churches against the missionary authority — (of infallible 
papacy ?) 

The Roberts College, which was realized through many 
years of effort and suffering by Dr. Hamlin, was wrested 
from the hands of its founder, and Dr. Hamlin was ban- 
ished to America, there to repent for his mortal sin. 

Dr. H. J. Van Lennep had the same fate ; he was ab- 
ruptly driven from Turkey, together with his family, and 
was so roughly handled that the shock paralyzed his eye- 



Armenia's ordeal 63 

sight for the rest of his life.* Dr. Van Lennep has been 
the only missionary to whom the Armenian Protestants 
have felt so much gratitude as to honor his memory by 
placing a tombstone on his grave in Great Barrington, 
Mass., which stands as a mark of appreciation for the 
manly stand taken by him against missionary despot- 
ism. 

The persecution and banishment of two colleagues was 
not sufficient for the missionaries to conquer and subju- 
gate their converts. The converts would resist; they 
would rebel, especially when the missionaries would at- 
tempt to dictate to them arbitrarily, and would treat 
them as though they were their religious vassals. 

A large number of the Protestant Armenians gradually 
became disgusted with the missionaries, finding 

Their piety a system of deceit — 
Scripture employed to sanctify the cheat. 

They repented for having frivolously forsaken their 
mother Church for another without sufficient inquiry and 
knowledge. But they had not the manliness to acknowl- 
edge that they were mistaken. Their self-love and fool- 
ish pride would not permit them to return to the mother 
Church, to acknowledge their error, and to hear the '^ I- 
told-you-80 " of their gladdened friends and relatives. 
Yet they could not endure their position and wanted to 

*"I have been driven from my chosen field of thirty years' labour 
for presuming to defend the religious liberties and rights of the 
sixty new-born Evangelical [Protestant] Churches of Western 
Asia, and for expressing views based upon a broader experience 
and more generous sentiments than have fallen to the lot of my 
persecutors."— Rev. H. J. Van Lennep, D. D., Little Known Parts of 
Asia Minor, Vol. i., Preface, p. iv. 



64 ABMENIA'S OKDEAL 

have a change. The result of this was the introduction 
of various other Protestant denominations at the hands of 
rebellious Protestant pastors. The Protestant Millet was 
torn to half a dozen sects. The dissatisfied Protestants 
found gratification in their desire for having a change, 
and with their restless habit began to jump from one de- 
nomination to another, and changed their faith as often 
as they pleased. 

This fluctuation worried the American missionaries, 
and they made every effort to prevail upon the various 
denominations in America to dismiss their native mis- 
sionaries, as they were confounding the "Lord's work." 
They endeavored to have the new missions closed up, 
that the American Board might have the religious monop- 
oly of Turkey. 

These events had a demoralizing influence on the Prot- 
estants, and the majority of them received the lamentable 
impression that religion was all humbug, and that it was 
to be used for worldly advantages. "Free-thinking" and 
atheism, which were heretofore unknown among Armen- 
ians, gradually began to spread among the disappointed 
Protestants. Some openly denied the existence of God, 
while others did not renounce their faith because it was 
to their interest to feign religiousness. 

And as when " one member suffers all the members 
suffer with it," the Armenian nation itself did not remain 
free from this contagion. A number of Protestants, find- 
ing that their faith was a failure, gave up religion alto- 
gether and plunged into atheism, but they were not sat- 
isfied with their own ruin and wanted to ruin the others 
also. As the irreligious would be looked on by the re- 
ligious with disdain, they were bent on destroying relig- 



ARMENIA'S ORDEAL 65 

ion in order to escape the contempt of the religious. 

Atheism began to spread. Christianity in general, and 
the Armenian Church in particular, was ridiculed and 
sneered at, and the sanctities of the Church became the 
theme of vile comic papers. Atheistic literature was 
translated into Armenian and published, and he who was 
not an atheist was not an up-to-date man. 

Atheism was spread among Armenians particularly in 
the Turkish capital and in Smyrna. Some Armenians 
who would not believe in any religion at all began to ad- 
vocate the reformation of the Church of Armenia ; they 
wanted some transformation, some change, some altera- 
tion and reduction on Protestant principles. If they ap- 
proved of Protestantism, why not join one of the various 
Protestant denominations and why bother with changing 
the Church of Armenia? But, no; they did not care for 
any form of religion. They just wanted to ruin the ex- 
isting orders — that was all. 

An Armenian novelist in Russo- Armenia, whose works 
found wide reading among the Armenians, especially 
since the Turkish government prohibited their circulation 
because of their somewhat seditious character, having 
been infected by the epidemic of the time, made it his 
business to calumniate in his novels the Armenian clergy 
and Church, perhaps imagining that by so doing he 
would become an Eugene Sue. He advocated church 
reform and all sorts of absurdities ; his idea of the true 
form of religion was a confusion of everything, and inclu- 
ded the transmigration of the soul. His novels tended 
to propagate atheism rather than anything else, and had 
a very ruinous effect on the minds of his readers. One of 
his thoughtless utterances was his calling attention to 



66 ARMENIA'S ORDEAI. 

the Armenian monasteries as very good edifices to be util- 
ized for barracks in case of an Armenian revolution, and 
now, as a result, some of them have been transformed to 
barracks of the Kurdish Hamidieh cavalry. 

When this novelist died, the Aveda2yer, the Armenian 
organ of the American missionaries, j)ublished his obitu- 
ary in the highest words of praise, and lamented the loss 
of such a great man ; and the greatness of this man con- 
sisted in this, that he did much in ruining the faith of 
the Armenians. 

This man had an associate named Gregor Ardzrouni, 
who was the proprietor and editor of an Armenian news- 
paper, the MschaJc, published in Tiflis, in the Caucasus. 
Being atheists themselves, they had formed a party for 
the reformation of the Church of Armenia, all the Prot- 
estants being in sympathy with them. They did this for 
the simple reason that a ' ' church-retorm " movement 
among the Armenians would be the first step towards the 
annihilation of the Church of Armenia. 

Impudences of this nature reached their maximum, 
and a crisis was fast approaching — a crisis which was to 
determine whether the ancient Apostolic Church of Ar- 
menia, after passing through the ordeal of so many dark 
centuries, was to perish on the threshold of the twentieth 
century, or whether Divine Providence was to deliver her 
from the destructive plans of the wicked. 



ARMENIA'S ORDEAL 67 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE EDUCATIONAL WORK. 



Before proceeding with the account of the activity of 
the Church reformists, I must pause to make an exami- 
nation of the educational work of the missionaries. 

Besides the religious work, the missionaries carry on 
also an educational work. This is a branch and an instru- 
ment of the former. Although for the past twenty- five 
years there have been almost no converts to Protestant- 
ism, this educational work is propagating the ' ' truth, " 
and hundreds of Armenian boys annually sent to the mis> 
sionary schools by simple-minded parents, come out from 
them altogether changed and different from what they 
were when in the home of their parents. It is true that 
they get a general education ; they learn reading, writing, 
arithmetic, geography, and this and that. But are these 
sufficient to refine and elevate these children ? 

The missionary educational institutions are on strictly 
religious principles ; they are meant to make Protestants 
out of the pupils. The work of Protestantization has 
two courses. In the first course they teach the pupils 
that the Church of Armenia is all corruption and all 
wrong ; in the second course they instruct the students 
in the strict observance of the sabbath, regular attend- 
ance to the wearisome prayer-meetings, and a few idle 
formalities to which the missionaries attach too much im- 
portance. The innocent children do learn that their 
mother Church is all corruption, but they do not see why 



68 Armenia's ordeal 

those few idle formalities emphasized by their teachers 
should be observed at all, and when they grow into man- 
hood they do not believe in the Church of Armenia, 
neither would they become Protestants. They enter these 
schools with piety in their hearts, but they come out with 
contempt for religion. The missionaries feel satisfaction 
in seeing that Armenians are cooling toward their Church, 
and they hold this to be an evidence of enlightenment. 

There are missionary colleges in Marsovan, Aintab and 
Harpoot, and high schools in Bardizag and Bitlis. There 
is also the Roberts college in Constantinople, which is 
formally said to be an independent institution, but in 
fact it is under missionary control since it was wrested 
from Dr. Cyrus Hamlin's hands. 

Now, what good have all these educational institutions 
done for the Armenians ? They have existed for so many 
years and millions of American money have been wasted 
on them — have they done any good for the Armenians? 
The Armenians are known as a very intelligent people, 
who have earned fame everywhere they have gone. How 
is it that the missionary education has not raised anybody 
of particular note from among this people? The Hon. 
James Bryce, speaking of the Armenians, testifies for 
them the following : 

' ' They are a strong race, not only with vigorous nerves 
and sinews, physically active and energetic, but also of 
conspicuous brain power. Thus, they have held a very 
important place among the inhabitants of Western Asia 
ever since the sixth century. If you look into the annals 
of the East Roman or Byzantine Empire, you will find 
that most of the men who rose to eminence in its service 
as generals or statesmen during the early middle ages 
were of Armenian stock. So was it after the establish- 



Armenia's ordeal 69 

ment of the Turkish dominion in Europe. Many of the 
ablest men in the Turkish service have been Armenian by 
birth or extraction. The same is true with regard to the 
Russian service. Among all those who dwell in Western 
Asia, they stand first, with a capacity for intellectual 
and moral progress, as well as with a natural tenacity of 
will and purpose, beyond that of all their neighbors not 
merely of Turks, Tartars, Kurds and Persians, but also of 
Russians."* 

How is it that out of such a race the missionaries have 
not produced, from their educational institutions anybody 
of merit or distinction, who should have rendered any 
service to his nation? Where are the authors in poetry, 
history, and in the various other branches of literature, 
that such educational institutions should have produced 
were they not crippled by such teachings as would de- 
moralize the intellectual faculties? 

I challenge the missionaries to show a few graduates of 
their colleges for whom they can testify as scholars oi 
any merit, that have rendered any service to Armenian 
literature, or men who have been of any use for their na- 
tion. Can they show, out of the thousands of graduates 
of their educational institutions, a single person of the 
standard of Archbishop Lusignan, Patriarch Izmirlian, or 
Catholicos Mugurditch I. (Khrimian), — those worthy 
sons of the Church of Armenia? 

How is it that during their sixty-five years of labor 
among the Armenians the missionaries have not raised a 
single Armenian whom they themselves have found 
worthy of being the bearer of the title of Doctor of Divin- 
ity? How is it that during all this time there has not 

*As quoted by Miss Alice Stone Blackwell, in Introduction to 
Armenian Poems (Roberts Brothers, Boston.} 



70 akmenia's ordeal 

been a single Protestant Armenian whom they should 
have deemed worthy of a seat in the Strawberry Conven- 
tions?* 

Let the missionaries point out the most eminent and 
worthy man in their estimation (a living man) that their 
educational institutions have reared, and let us see what 
he is like. 

Let us examine the ability of one of the most promi- 
nent missionaries engaged in educational work, and there- 
by judge the fruit that such a plant could possibly bear. 
Dr. Crosby H. Wheeler, the founder of the Euphrates 
College in Harpoot, who has been president of that col- 
lege until recently, is a good type of the missionaries en- 
gaged in educating the Armenians. Thousands of boys 
and girls have received their education under his super- 
vision and direction. < 

When asked by Armenians why the Protestants do not 
practice the commandment of Jesus regarding washing 
each other's feet, which was given not only verbally, like 
the commandment for baptism, but also by practical ex- 
ample. Dr. Wheeler replied, "Well, I wash my wife's 
feet." I do not know how this sounds to Americans, but 
it is most indecent and profane language for Armenians, 
especially when used in connection with sacred affairs of 

*The missionaries in Turkey annually gather in Constantinople 
for the purpose of conferring on the means of promoting their 
work. This convention is held in May, when the celebrated 
strawberry of Arnaut-Keuy, a suburb of Constantiriople, is put in 
the market, of which the missionaries are very fond. The mis- 
sionaries hold their session in strict secrecy, and it was whispered 
about that the meeting of the missionaries was all a sham, and 
only a pretext to come to Constantinople and enjoy the straw- 
berry of Arnaut-Keuy ; hence it derived its name of Strawberry 
Convention, now in common use in Constantinople. 



ARMENIA'S OBDEAL 71 

religion. Only libertines would indulge in this sort of 
vile language. 

On an occasion when Dr. Wheeler happened to be in 
an Armenian Church, a lady approached him after the 
church services were over, and asked him it there was 
anything wrong in kissing the cross, which the priest 
held out for the people to kiss before leaving the Church, 
after the established custom, and whether Dr. Wheeler 
would not kiss the cross ? The missionary replied, 

" Why should I kiss a cross ?" 

'* Don't you know that the Saviour died upon the 
cross ?" asked the Armenian lady. 

"Well," said this novel evangelist, "if I must kiss ev- 
ery cross because the Saviour died on one, then I must 
kiss every ass because the Saviour rode on one." 

The priest, who was standing not far off, overheard 
this, and interposing, said : 

" Pardon me, lady, let me answer that foolish talk." 
And turning to Dr. Wheeler, added, "Jesus saved me 
by dying on the cross, but what did he do for me by rid- 
ing on an ass?"* 

The above two stories are recited with glory by Dr. 
Wheeler in one of his books, to show how he preached 
the "truth" to the Armenian " nominal Christians." 

Now, which of these two— the Armenian priest and 
the American missionary — which of these two should 
evangelize the other? Which is a better Christian? 

*"Btit God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our 
Lord Jesus Christ " (Gal. vi. 14-) "I have told you often and now 
tell you even weeping, that they are^^the enemies of the cross of 
Christ : Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly and 
whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things" (Phil. Hi. 
18-19.) 



72 Armenia's ordeal 

Which is a better man ? Which of the two is fit to be 
the shepherd of a people, and which one is unfit? Should 
such a man like Wheeler be entrusted with the educa- 
tion of the young while he speaks of holy things with 
such disrespectful language? And when he is trusted 
with such a vital task what kind of pupils can be ex- 
pected of him ? Could he possibly educate his pupils to 
be any better than himself ? 

Christianity has been the life of the Armenian nation ; 
when it is uprooted from the Armenian heart how shall 
the nation live? 

This corru23t educational work has demoralized the 
new generation. The spirit of nationality is dead; all 
noble feelings are gone, and those sons of the nation who 
should have devoted their lives for the well-being of their 
nation, now look upon everything as vanity excepting 
their own selves. When a man has no religion ; when a 
man has no fear of the Deity ; when a man does not be- 
lieve in a future life, wherein he may expect to receive 
the compensation of his noble deeds in this world, what 
on earth can impel a man to lay down his life for his 
brother, or even to give precedence to the well-being of 
his brethren over that of his own ? 

What have the missionaries made of the Armenians that 
have fallen under their influence? Have they elevated 
them or debased them? Not long ago Dr. Farnsworth, 
one of the oldest missionaries to i^ne Armenians, declared 
to a gathering of American ladies in Brooklyn that be- 
fore the entry of the missionaries in Turkey the Armen- 
ians possessed such a corrupt form of religion that their 
Moslem neighbors detested it, and said, "Is this Chris- 
tianity ? If so, we want none of it. " But since then the 




CATHOLICOS MAGAR I. 



ARMENIA'S ORDEAL ^ 73 

missionaries have brought their converts to such a state 
that the Moslems -would not say that anymore.* Is this 
elevation or degradation? Is it to the credit of any 
Christian to meet the approval of the Moslems regarding 
his religion ? Are the Moslems the true judges of the 
best form of Christianity ? Should we seek their appro- 
bation for our faith? The children of the Church of Ar- 
menia have always sought to meet the approval of God 
alone, and not of the Turks. When God approves, of 
course the harem-keeping Turk should disapprove ; and 
when the harem-keeping Turk approves God would cer- 
tainly disapprove. I feel very sorry for Dr. Farnsworth 
that he considers the disapproval of our religion by the 
Moslems something to our discredit. 

I fear that the missionaries in Turkey, instead of influ- 
encing the Moslems with Christianity, are themselves 
falling under the influence of Mohammedanism, and are 
becoming admirers of Mohammed. It was with no little 
regret that some time ago I read the following passage 
from the pen of a former missionary of the American 
Board : 

' ' I have a profound respect for the prophet of Arabia, 
who might have been another apostle Paul," &c.t 

It is something to be regretted that while the mission- 
aries have no respect at all for the Cross, and would 
compare it with an ass, they have profound respect for 
Mohammed ; and yet they claim to be the propagators of 

* See Dr. Farnsworth's speech to the Brooklyn Auxiliaries of 
the Women's Board of Foreign Missions on February 26th, 1896, 
reported in the New York Times of the following day. 

tRev. Frederick D. Greene, The Armenian Crisis in Turkey^ p. no. 



74 ARMENIA'S ORDEAL 

the Christian faith. Is it any wonder that such mission- 
aries should make their converts also admirers of Moham- 
med and Mohammedanism ? 

Rev. Eghia Boyajian, M. D., of Nicomedia, was a grad- 
uate ol the Bebek Seminary (now Roberts College) . He 
labored with the missionaries as Protestant preacher for 
several years, and afterwards he embraced the Islam 
faith. 

Dr. Nevdon M. Boyajian, the son of Mr. Hagop Boy- 
ajian, the civil head of the Protestant Millet, who is the 
same to the Protestants of Turkey as the Armenian Pa- 
triarch of Constantinople is to the Armenians, five years 
ago published an article in the Cosmopolitan Magazine 
(for October, 1891), on the "Modern Women in Tur- 
key," in which he highly praised the Sultan and the 
Turkish women, and declared himself to be a Mohamme- 
dan, assuming the name Osman Bey, as it is customary 
when a Christian embraces Islamism for him to assume a 
Moslem name. That there may be no mistaking who this 
new Osman Bey was, a portrait of Dr. Boyajian was given 
with the article. It was shocking to the Armenian peo- 
ple to hear that the son of the civil head of the Protest- 
ant Millet should have acknowledged the faith of the 
Prophet of Arabia. Osman Bey, when a Christian, had 
held the post of President of the Armenian Branch of the 
Young Men's Christian Association of New York. He 
was a graduate of the Roberts College, and I can say that 
he was the most highly educated Armenian Protestant 
that the missionary institutions have ever produced. — If 
I am mistaken, let the missionaries kindly correct my 
error. 
Is this what the Armenians are to come to under mis- 



ARMENIA'S ORDEAL 75 

sionary education ? Armenians have always looked to 
the Mohammedans with shunning, and nothing was look- 
ed on with so much horror as the apostasy of an Armen- 
ian to become a Moslem. But now, thanks to the mis- 
sionaries, the times are changed and the people are more 
''enlightened." 

This educational work of the missionaries has arrested 
the progress of the Armenians in the same line. It is 
true that the Armenians of the National Church have nu- 
merous schools of their own, but in almost all of them 
the effect of missionary influence is felt. The Protestant 
Armenians have not kept themselves aloof from the nation 
as the Roman Catholic Armenians have done. They min- 
gle w^ith the Armenians of the National Church, and 
communicate to them their own ideas. They claim to be 
as patriotic as the rest of the Armenians, and as solici- 
tous for the progress of the nation. They often co-oper- 
ate with the Armenians in their educational work ; they 
join with the educational societies of the Armenians, and 
they get Protestants, or graduates of Protestant schools 
to teach in the schools of the Armenians, saying that 
' ' We are all Armenians — religious differences should not 
be a barrier amongst us. " 

The Armenians of the National Church have been alto- 
gether too tolerant in this respect, and behold, the ruin- 
ous Protestant influence is felt in almost all the schools. 
The new generation is demoralized in these schools by 
corrupt teachings regarding the Church. There are no 
regular lessons given about it, but often a contemptuous 
smile from the teacher on matters of the Church would 
have a more ruinous effect on a whole class than wordy 
homilies. In former times the Armenian boys in the Na- 



*^^ Armenia's obdeal. 

tional schools learned not only how to read and write, 
and this and that, but also how to be good Christians. 
But now they learn that Church and religion are only for 
the old women, and that it is not decent for a learned 
young fellow to go to Church or observe religious pre- 
cepts like other superstitious people. 

Alas ! for the Nation. It has very little to expect from 
the rising generation ; and when the Nation's leading 
spirits — the Armenians of the old school — shall disap- 
pear, I know not how the vacancy can be filled. 

As a direct result of this corruption, modern Armenian 
literature is in a miserable condition. Forty years ago 
we were better off in that respect. The publications were 
not so numerous then, but they were not rubbish, as is 
contemporary literature, with very few exceptions. 

The colleges of the missionaries, and those of the Na- 
tion in recent years, have produced no men of merit. 
The graduates of these schools have been of no benefit to 
the Nation. As a rule, they are full of self-conceit, pride, 
vanity and ostentation — wind-bags, in short. They have 
lost seriousness, earnestness and modesty, which are the 
characteristic traits of an Armenian left in his natural 
state, They have been in many cases worse than useless, 
and dangerous for the Nation in its most grave trials in 
recent years. I will have occasion, further on, to speak 
on the attitude of this class of men towards the Nation. 

About the time when the American missionaries began 
their labors among the Armenians, Mr. Pease, one of the 
missionaries of the Board, wrote from Constantinople the 
following : 

' ' I have never seen an Armenian engaged in the busi- 



ARMENIA'S ORDEAL 77 

ness of selling spirits, nor in a grog-shop, nor drunk, or 
at all under the influence of spirits."* 

And Mr. Dwight, after having traveled in Asia Minor 
and Armenia, wrote — 

" I am not aware that hitherto any of the Armenians 
have become free-thinkers, nor do I imagine that, as a 
nation, they are particularly exposed to this evil, "f 

Blessed times ! 

Can the missionaries say these things now ? 

O ! Missionaries ! Give us back those blessed old 
times ; give us back our old Christianity which you took 
away from us ; give us back our former purity ; give us 
back our lost brethren whom you have led into the mire 
of corruption ! You have ruined our nation, you have 
defiled our homes, you have debased our brethren moral- 
ly and spiritually. " Woe unto you scribes and Phari- 
sees, hypocrites t for ye compass sea and land to make 
one proselyte ; and when he is made ye make him two- 
fold the child of hell than yourselves" (Matt, xxiii. 15). 
You have been speeding the day of the coming of the 
Lord by annihilating the faith of Christians to fulfil the 
prophesy of our Saviour: "When the Son of Man com- 
eth shall he find faith on the earth ?" (Luke xviii. 8.) 

*Missionary Herald for 1837, p. 412. \Miss. Herald for 1836, p. 49. 



78 Armenia's ordeal 

CHAPTER V. 

THE PLOTS OP THE " CHURCH-REFORMISTS." 

At the end of the chapter previous to the preceding 
one, the formation of an atheistic party for the purpose 
of demolishing the National Church was alluded to. Now 
I come to give an account of the deeds of this party, 
which we can safely term as the result of the tares sowed 
by the missionaries. 

When on April 28, 1891, Catholicos Magar I., the Su- 
preme Patriarch of the Church of Armenia, died, the 
Armenian horizon was thickly enveloped with dark 
clouds. By the death of His Holiness the nation was 
left in darkness as to the future. It was the beginning 
of a great struggle for the maintenance of the National 
Church. A crisis was at hand, and the fate of the Church 
was to be decided. There was to be a battle between 
light and darkness — a battle between the Kingdom of 
Christ and that of Satan. It was to be decided whether 
the Apostolic Church of Armenia was to be subjected to 
a revolution at the hands of a pack of impious scoundrels 
or whether she was going to be upheld in her primitive 
spirit of Christianity. 

This vital question was to be determined by the char- 
acter of the new PontifE to be elected to succeed the de- 
ceased Catholicos. A remarkable vision seen by the 
late Catholicos on the night previous to his decease, 
pointed out that the Kingdom of Christ was to come out 
triumphant in the coming struggle, and that a new era 



aemenia's ordeal 79 

of regeneration was at hand.* But the truthfulness of 
a vision cannot be relied on until it is fulfilled ; there- 
fore, while it inspired some encouragement, the anxiety 
for the future must have been, indeed, very great to those 
who could fully realize the gravity of the situation. 

There was only one prominent candidate for the suc- 
cession on the Pontificial throne, and the eyes of the na- 
tion were hopefully set upon him. He was Archbishop 
Khrimian, whom the whole nation idolized and called 
with the endearing name Hairig (papa.) 

Khrimian was a true son of the Church of Armenia. 
He was a conservative in matters of the Church, and a 
man of great intelligence. He possessed all the qualifi- 

*The following is the account of the vision seen by Catholicos 
Magar, which he related to those around his death-bed : 

" My sons, I have disturbed you, but I have had a dream : Mount 
Aiarat was flooded with light. The Apostles of the Church of 
Armenia, the Illuminator, with his sons and grandsons, Sahag, 
Otsnetsi, the Nersesses, all the laboring Patriarchs, Abgar, Tlri- 
dates, Vramshabouh, the Sumpads, Gagig, Leon, the Vartanians, 
in short, all the martyrs of the Armenian Church and of the Na- 
tional autonomy, were gathered and were rejoicing. I saw vipers 
devoid of their venom, and dead. A luminous form spoke out to 
all : ' Behold, I have annihilated from among you all the poisons 
of corruption ; this land shall always shine If Its sons should not 
create reptiles anew, I bestow this grace unto you for the sake 
of your blood. Inspire your spirit into them that they may know 
the value of my visitation. I have enriched them four times, but 
each time they squandered their riches with their own hands.' 
The luminous form called an old man and said unto him, ' Thou 
lead them by thy piety. [The Form] ordered a young man to 
assume leadership, and by his patriotism chastise the surround- 
ing enemies. [The Form] ordered a youth to exercise them In 
modesty. > [The Form] commanded a brave man, dressed In red, 
not to be so lenient, and not to trust In every pledge, but to har- 
poon the vainglorious plotters ; and, after all these, [the Form] 
blessed an angelic looking lad, the like of whose gracefulness I 



80 ARMENIA'S ORDEAL 

cations for the exalted office of the religious head of the 
Nation. He had held high posts, discharging his duties 
with wisdom; he had filled the Patriarchal chair ot Con- 
stantinople for four years (1869-1873), and had won the 
love of the whole nation. He could have held the post 
of Patriarch of Constantinople for life had he not been 
driven to resign by the intrigues of the Turkish GJ-overn- 
ment, which disliked him very much because of his zeal 
for the well-being of his flock. Unfortunately Khrimian 
was, at this time, an exile and a prisoner confined in the 
Armenian monastery in Jerusalem by order of the Sultan. 

The atheistic church-reformists, whose leader was 
Gregor Ardzrouni, also had their own candidate, whom 
they desired to see on the Pontificial throne. He was 
Bishop Arisdagess Setrakian. 

Setrakian was a man of no particular distinction, very 
little known by the nation, devoid of the qualifications 
necessary for the sacred office to which he aspired. He 
was an ambitious man, and anxious to become Catholi- 
008 — not to serve the nation, but to receive the homage 

have not known any, and [the Form] ordered all to obey him. 
They were led towards this temple [the Cathedral of Etchmiad- 
zin] ; I also went with them ; I also desired to bless that young- 
man, but the Voice forbade me, saying, ' There is time yet. Saul 
must die that the David which I have annointed may be publicly 
annointed here in this holy place.' I worshipped that luminous 
Form and awoke. It seems that this signifies a visitation of our 
Lord. Be faithful to the God of our forefathers ; give good exam- 
ple to the people and encourage them not to despair, but to labor 
with patience, each one pursuing his course in his own calling, in 
the brave and dauntless religiousness and patriotism of the fore- 
fathers." — The Last Days of Magar I.^ Catholicos of all the Armenians 
by his biographer, reported in the Armenia, of Marseilles (France), 
July ,8, 1891. 



■ 





CATHOLICOS MUGURDITCH I. (Hairig.) 



Armenia's ordeal 81 

of the nation and to gratify his vanity. He was ready to 
sacrifice anything for the sake of capturing the throne. 
Setrakian was a member of the Synod in Etchmiadzin, 
the seat of the Catholicos, where he had much influence^ 
especially after the decease of Catholicos Magar. Setrak- 
ian entered into secret negotiations with the Russian Gov- 
ernment to secure its assistance in his election, in return 
promising that in the event of his election he would place 
the Church of Armenia in close relation with the Russian 
Church. Thus, the Russian Government became as much 
interested in Setrakian's election as Setrakian himself 
was. Setrakian was inclined to do all the mischief in his 
power for the promotion of his ambition, and the Russian 
Government was ready to help him. 

Ardzrouni was particularly anxious for Setrakian's elec- 
tion because Setrakian promised that, when elected, he 
would carry out such reforms in the Church as his sup- 
porters desired. 

The Church of Armenia, according to the words of 
Jesus, maintains that " Whosoever shall marry her that 
is divorced committeth adultery " (Matt. v. 32). Now, 
Ardzrouni desired to marry a woman who had deserted 
Jier husband and was unlawfully living with him (Ard- 
zrouni) , which is something of extremely unusual occur- 
rence among Armenians, and considered shockingly im- 
moral. Ardzrouni was not satisfied with setting 
such a shameful example before the Armenian people and 
desired that the Church should sanction his crime by 
marrying them. In order to evade the condemnation of 
his people, Ardzrouni took Setrakian's promise that, 
when elected Catholicos, he would, in return for Ard- 
zrouni's support, reform the marriage code, and make it 



82 Armenia's ordeal 

lawful for people to secure divorce and marry others. In 
other words, Ardzrouni sought to evade condemnation 
for his crime by making the crime general. 

Setrakian gave such promises freely to his would-be 
supporters, and it seems that he was so ignorant of the 
constitution of the Church that he imagined the Church 
was the plaything of the Catholicos, who could do with 
it as he might please. 

The election of the new Pontiff was set down for May 
16, 1892, to take place in Etchmiadzin. According to 
the regulations an electoral congress, consisting of ec- 
clesiastics and laymen, was to assemble, one ecclesiastic 
and one lay delegate being sent from each diocese all over 
the world. 

The seat of the Catholicos being under the flag of the 
Russian government, the election of a Catholicos by the 
Armenian delegates is hampered by Russian intermed- 
dling. The Holy Czar uses his worldly power to violate 
the inviolable rights of the Church of Christ. There is 
a certain law set by the Russian government regulating 
the election of an Armenian Catholicos by the Armenianis 
themselves, and the Armenian delegates must observe 
that law.* In case the delegates should defy that law 

♦"The relations of the Armenian Church to the Russian Govern- 
ment are regulated in a long document which received the signa- 
ture of Emperor Nicholas on March 23, 1836, and which, while 
reciting the internal constitution of the Church and the rules 
which govern the conduct of its own affairs, defines at the same 
time its privileges and its duties in connection with the Russian 
State. * * * The spiritual supremecy of the Catholikos of 
Etchmiadzin is recognised ; but Russia emphasises and develops 
the constitutional position of the Synod in the government of the 
Church, and then very wisely [for Russian despotism] frames reg- 
ulations which aim at making the Synod subservient to herself. 



akmenia's okdeal 83 

the penalty is hard labor in the mines of Siberia, This 
law robs the Armenians of the right of electing their Ca- 
tholicos — a right which has been exercised down to the 

This Synod consists of four archbishops or bishops and four ar- 
chimandrites, all residing at Etchmiadzin ; the Catholikos, if pres- 
ent at the sitting, presides. The Emperor fills up any vacancy in 
the body, two names being submitted to him by the Catholikos 
from which to make his choice. * * * The Synod must con- 
duct its affairs according to the Russian laws which govern col- 
leges, and it is under the supervision of the Minister of the Inter- 
ior. The Russian Government also appoints a Procureur or Con- 
troller who speaks both Armenian and Russian, and whose busi- 
ness it is to reside at Etchmiadzin and to supervise all the decrees 
of the Synod and pronounce upon their legality and their conso- 
nence with the powers which that body holds. These decrees are 
headed, 'By the order of the Emperor of Russia,' the Emperor be- 
ing the tutelar head of the Synod [by virtue of his tyranny]. The 
members of the Chancellery, who conduct the clerical work of the 
Synod, must be chosen with the approval of the Russian Control- 
ler, and at present they work under him. Nor is the Catholikos 
in a position of complete freedom even when he acts with his 
Synod. He cannot punish a member of Synod or even a diocesan 
bishop without notifying his intention to the Emperor and receiv- 
ing his consent. If he happens to have any matter pending with 
any foreign state he must communicate to the Emperor through 
the governor of the province of Erivan. If he wishes to leave 
Etchmiadzin for more than four months he must obtain the per- 
mission of the Emperor through the Minister of the Interior ; nor 
can he sanction the absence of a bishop abroad for more than the 
same period without having previously consulted the Imperial 
will. Every bishop of a diocese is appointed by the Emperor, to 
whom the Catholikos presents the names of candidates. But per- 
haps the most serious, because the most insidious, weapon against 
the independence of the Armenian Church, is the provision which 
enacts that a year shall elapse between the death of a Catholikos 
and the election of his successor. * * as a consequence a long 
interregnum ensues during which it is possible for the Government 
to play off one party against another, and to obtain those conces- 
sions which might be resisted during the occupancy of the chair." 
— H. F. B. Lvnch, " The Armenian Question," in the Contemporary 



84 AKMENIA'S ORDEAL 

present century until Etchmiadzin fell under the Russian 
flag. This outrageous law requires that the Armenian 
electoral congress shall nominate two candidates and sub- 

Revtew, July, 1894. 

" The Church of Armenia, which withstood the persecutions of 
Sassanian kings, the blandishments of Byzantine emperors, the 
fiery onslaught of fanatic Mussulmans, and the more dangerous 
intrigues of its own schismatic members, is now gradually suc- 
cumbing to a judicious combination of all forms of persecution 
and cajolery employed by Russia. From the days of St. Gregory, 
the scion of a royal house and first Patriarch of Armenia, the 
Church has been governed as an absolute monarchy by his suc- 
cessors, called ' Catholicos,' until a comparatively recent period, 
when the ' natural protector of Oriental Christians ' forcibly intro- 
duced government by a Synod— the right of veto being invested 
in the Catholicos— as the thin edge of the wedge, which has been 
hammered and driven in considerably since then. The next im- 
portant move was made a few years ago, on the death of the late 
Catholicos, Kevork, who hated the Russian Government with the 
thoroughness and cordiality of which only a Christian ecclesiastic 
is capable. Theretofore it was customary for the delegates of the 
Turkish Armenians, who possessed a voice in the election of a Ca- 
tholicos, to select, for economy's sake, one or two of their number, 
to whom they delegated their voting powers. These would then 
set out for Etchmiadzin, in Russia, where the election takes place. 
On the death of Kevork, however, the Government suddenly re- 
. fused to sanction the practice of voting by proxy, and the electors 
were informed that unless they undertook, one and all, the costly 
journey to Russia, they must forfeit their votes. Against this the 
whole Armenian Church protested, and the Government straight- 
way threatened the existence of their schools. The privilege — 
which in Turkey and China would be the indefeasible right— of 
having parochial schools attached to Armenian parish churches 
was suddenly made conditional upon the priests and inspectors 
accepting the new additions made to their ancient ecclesiastical 
constitution.^ They replied that according to the canons of their 
Church no modifications could be lawfully introduced or accepted 
unless first sanctioned by the Catholicos, and as there was no Ca- 
tholicos they felt unable to take the matter into consideration. On 
this, the police entered the schools, drove out the weeping chil- 



ARMENIA'S ORDEAL. 85 

mit their names to the Czar, for him to choose and elect 
one, whereby the Czar's choice becomes the Catholicos- 
elect. 

dren, and closed the premises. Still the Synod stood firm. Then 
Prince Dondukoff-Korsakoff pointed out to the members of that 
body that according to Article 329 of the Penal Code, the penalty 
for their contumacy was hard labour in the mines of Siberia, inas- 
much as the objectionable clauses had been promulgated in a 
Ukase of the Most High— z. ^., the Tsar. [The Czar goes up so" 
high that no room is left for God.] The Synod was deaf to these 
threats. The Emperor, directly appealed to by his representa- 
tive, telegraphed reiterating his commands, but the Synod re- 
peated its non possumus. 

The elections at last took place, two candidates were chosen ac- 
cording to custom, the right being vested in the Russian Govern- 
ment, as the natural protector of all Oriental Christians, to ap- 
prove either of them. It had never before exercised that right 
to prefer the favorite candidate of the Synod to an unpopular one 
put forward merely in obedience to force majeure. On this occa- 
sion, determined to avail itself of this right of selection, the Gov- 
ernment took steps to have one of the candidates a Russophile. 
The eclesiastic electors, over whose heads the penalties decreed 
by Art. 329 were hanging, were informed that their crime would 
be left unpunished if they voted for Archbishop Magar. Hoping 
or believing that the candidate of the majority would be approved 
by the Russian authorities, the ecclesiastical electors purchased 
pardon on these seemingly easy terms. They, and they only, to 
the number of fourteen, voted for Magar, while both they and the 
lay electors chose Archbishop Muradian, who was thus unani- 
mously elected with thirty-one votes. The Government at once 
selected the unpopular Magar and materially contributed to orig- 
inate a schism in the Church of a people, the majority of whom 
live in Turkey. Several bishops and priests refused at first to 
recognize the new Catholicos, others struck his name out of the 
prayers during divine service, and even now many venerable ec- 
clesiastics are only restrained from protesting and transferring 
their allegiance to another by considerations of prudence and pa- 
triotism. Impotence to resist only intensifies the feeling of hatred 
with which most Armenians regard the Russian Government for 
its systematic endeavours to sweep away the National Church, 



86 Armenia's ordeal 

Khrimian's popularity was so overwhelming that any 
one opposing him would be recognized by the nation as 
a traitor. Khrimian was recognized as the standard of 
patriotism, and whoever sought the best interests of the 
nation could not but favor his election. The only fear 
entertained and the apprehension felt by the Armenians 
was that the Czar might approve ot the other name that 
needs must be presented with that of Khrimian. 

Setrakian had no fair chance for election. The mo- 
ment it should have been discovered that he was aspiring 
for the exalted office he would invite the hatred of the 
Armenian nation. His chance of being elected was only 
through craft, guile and deceit, and he began to plot 
against Khrimian soon after the decease of Magar I. 

The civil code regulating the election of a new Cathol- 
icos requires that the election should not be held until 

this last repository of the traditions, hopes and aspirations of a 
brave people. That the closing of the schools was not merely a 
transient form of punishment for disobedience, but one of the 
means deliberately employed to crush out the national spirit, is ev- 
ident from the galling conditions attached to their re-opening 
after the Government had scored a success in the election of the 
present Catholicos, The schools were declared to have perma- 
nently forfeited several of their 'privileges,' their programme 
was considerably narrowed, they were forbidden to have more 
than two classes, so that the utmost they can now do is to teach a 
child to read a little, and in the girl's school not even so much, as 
they can possess but one solitarj' class," — E. B. Lanin, " Armenia 
and the Armenian People," Fortnightly Review^ August, i8go. 

Notwithstanding the fact that Catholicos Magar owed his elec- 
tion to the Czar, he was so much disgusted with Russian intrigues, 
that he became a bitter Russophobist, and his death was hastened 
by excitement in preparing a memorial which he signed two days 
before his death, and sent to the Czar, protesting against his re- 
newed oppressive measures. 



ARMENIA'S ORDEAL 87 

one year after the d*>ath of a Pontiff. This gave Setrak- 
ian ample time to conspire. 

Gregor Ardzrouni was Setrakian's secret manager. His 
plan to carry out Setrakian's election was to get his can- 
didate's name on the ticket as the second choice of the 
nation, and to have it presented to the Czar together with 
Khrimian's name. That would finish the business, for 
the Czar's choice would surely be Setrakian. 

In order to operate freely this evil design, Setrakian 
found it necessary to have two of the members of the 
Synod removed. These two were the Bishops Souki-,s 
Barziantz and Nerses Khudaverdiantz. The Russian 
government was ready to give all assistance to Setrakian. 
Shortly after the decease of Catholicos Magar the great 
monastery of Etchmiadzin was unexpectedly visited by 
the Russian secret police, the two above-mentioned Bish- 
ops were seized and thrown into a closed van, and car- 
ried off to parts unknown under the orders of supreme 
authority. The rumor was soon spread Ihat the two 
Bishops were banished to Siberia, and that the one had 
died on the way.* Armenians were helplsss to do any- 
thing, and they could but hate the Russian government 
all the more. It was not known then that this was a 
part in the programme of the Setrakian- Ardzrouni con- 
spiracy, even the existence of such a conspiracy being 
unknown at the time. By the removal of these two Bish- 
ops the monastery of Etchmiadzin was left under the 
sway of Setrakian, who now had every facility to plot 
and conspire. 

Ardzrouni could not openly advocate the nomination of 

*The two Bishops were held in detention until after the new 
Catholicos was elected and enthroned, when they were released. 



88 ARMENIA'S ORDEAL 

Setrakian to be the nation's first choice, for that would 
make him a dead man morally ; therefore he resorted to hy- 
pocrisy. He advocated Khrimian as the only man to be 
the nation's first choice and the future Catholicos, and 
he pretended to be the most ardent and fiery advocate for 
Khrimian. By this hypocrisy he succeeded in becoming 
the leader and manager of the Khrimian boom in Russian 
Armenia. The vote of the Russo- Armenian delegation 
was under his control. He pleaded that the ticket should 
be prepared with Khrimian as the first choice and Se- 
trakian as the second choice. He argued that the Rus- 
sian government, knowing well what a strong man 
Khrimian was, would bitterly oppose him, and the Czar 
would surely approve of any other person but Khrimian, 
whoever the second party might be. Therefore, he ar- 
gued, the only hope of the nation in realizing Khrimian's 
election would be in fooling the Czar by placing on the 
ticket with Khrimian one who would decline to accept 
the high office, when the Czar should approve his name, 
whereby the Czar would be compelled to recognize 
Khrimian as the rightful Catholicos. He advocated Se- 
trakian as the only trusty man on whom they could rely 
for giving him the second place on the ticket. He assured 
them that Setrakian would rather die than accept the 
throne in case the Czar's approval should fall upon him- 
self, and thus the Czar's choice would inevitably settle 
upon Khrimian, the only choice of the Armenians, whom 
the nation was determined to have. 

'But Ardzrouni's secret design was not to fool the Czar 
but to fool the Armenian nation ; to place Setrakian on 
the throne by deceit, and then laugh upon the electoral 
congress and the nation. 




PATRIARCH MATTHEW IZMIRLIAN. 



Armenia's ordeal 89 

But when the delegation came from Armenia proper 
and Turkey, there were such men among the delegates 
whose sight could penetrate into the hearts of Ardzrouni 
and Setrakian, and could see their duplicity and malice. 

The 16th of May, 1892, arrived. The electoral congress 
was assembled. Thousands of Armenians had flocked 
thither from the neighboring towns. Peasants and farm- 
ers had forsaken their toil in the fields, and had tramped 
several miles to be at hand to hear first of Khrimian's 
nomination as the nation's first choice. The electoral 
congress had locked itself in the Cathedral. The lay del- 
egates were solemnly sworn in the name of the Almighty 
to remain faithful to the nation in the discharge of their 
duty — an oath which only those could feel themselves 
bound to keep who did believe in the Almighty. 

1 vast multitude of Armenians surged around the walls 
of the sacred edifice, and ail awaited in great anxiety to 
hear of the result of the balloting. It was a touching 
spectacle. Men and women, the young and the old, wept 
like children as their voices grew hoarse by shouting 
"Papa ! Papa ! Papa ! Long live Papa !" (Hairig ! 
Hairig ! Hairig ! Gettzeh Hairig !) — as the whole nation 
was wont to call the beloved Archbishop Khrimian by 
that affectionate title. 

Ardzrouni and Setrakian met with utter defeat in their 
secret design. Archbishop Khrimian, of Van, was unan- 
imously nominated as the nation's first choice, receiving 
the whole vote of the 72 electors ; but the second choice 
was Bishop Izmirlian, of Constantinople, who was nomi- 
•^ated with 52 votes. 

At high noon the signal was given by the peal of the 
bell of the Cathedral, informing the surging crowd that 



90 Armenia's obdeal 

" Papa " was the first choice of the electoral congress. 
The great multitude went wild with joy. The cause or 
the Church was won. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE TURNING OP THE TIDE. 

The result of this election was very displeasing to the 
Russian Government. Khrimian was a strong and indus- 
trious man in spite of his old age, and his inauguration 
meant the raising of Etchmiadzin to a powerful religious 
institution. This was displeasing to the Russian Govern- 
ment, which has been doing all in its power to ruin Etch- 
miadzin, to debase its high significance, to fetter the Ca- 
tholicos, and gradually to entomb the Armenians in the 
Russian Church. But Izmirlian, the second choice of the 
nation, in addition to being an intelligent, strong and 
active man like Khrimian, was younger by about a score 
of years, combative and fearless by nature, and openly in 
opposition to Russian civil interference with the matters 
of the Church of Armenia — a man who could make things 
unpleasant for the ' ' Holy " Czar and his ungodly policy 
against the Apostolic Church of Armenia. 

The Czar could not find his way out of this dilemma 
except by approving of Khrimian. But he was reluctant 
to do this. 

After the electoral congress adjourned and the delegates 
had gone home, Setrakian and Ardzrouni were active in 
making every effort to annul this election, and to make a 
new election necessary, hoping that in that event they 



ARMENIA'S ORDEAL M 

might find success in their base design. This was in har- 
mony with the wishes of the Russian Govern- 
ment, and the Czar gave these plotters ample 
time by reserving his decision for about six months. 
But finally, when there seemed to be no hope 
for the annulment of the election, the Czar ren- 
dered his decision approving of Archbishop Mugurditch 
Khrimian, the prisoner of Jerusalem, and the first choice 
of the Armenian nation. 

By his election to the Pontificate Archbishop Khrimian 
became a Russian subject, but the Turkish G-overnment 
was reluctant to release its distinguished prisoner, and 
the Russian Government was not anxious to secure his 
release. Thus, for months the matter remained in sus- 
pense, and the nation in great anxiety. 

At this time Gregor Ardzrouni died of heart disease, 
soon to be followed by his paramour, an immoral woman 
because of whom Ardzrouni would imperil the integ- 
rity of the Church and the fate of the nation, and have 
opened the way to great internal disorders and schisms, 
and that in such a grave epoch in the history of the na- 
tion, when a political crisis was fast approaching in Tur- 
key and Armenia, and the nation was to be overtaken by 
tremendous calamities which were being concocted at 
that time by Sultan Hamid, and of which the Armenians 
were not wholly unaware. 

Aidzrouni's death naturally crippled the Setrakian con- 
spiracy, which ended in complete failure. Finally Arch- 
bishop Khrimian was released, although with no little 
amount of difficulty, and was enthroned in Etchmiadzin 
8th October, 1893, -,s Catholicos Mugurditch I. 

Setrakian attempted to exercise influence over the new 



92 ARMENIA'S ORDEAL 

Pontiff, and to advise and direct him in his administra-; 
tion, as one who was familiar with the affairs of ;Etchmi- 
adzin, where he had resided so long. He soon discovered 
that the new Pontiff was too great a man to fall under 
his influence, that he was a man of will and purpose, 
with an administrative ability that surpassed that of any 
of his predecessors since the days of Nerses V. 

The Mschakists clamored that the new Gatholicos must 
have an advisor, and that the advisor should be none but 
Setrakian, and if it were possible they wished to have 
Setrakian appointed advisor to Gatholicos Mugurditch, 
as though the Gatholicos were not responsible for him- 
self. 

On making a survey of his surroundings Gatholicos 
Mugurditch was horrified to see that the seat of the Ar- 
menian Pontiffs was made, so to speak, the hole of wolves. 
Setrakian, during his unbridled sway, had placed the col- 
lege of the convent in the charge of atheistic and infidel 
teachers belonging to the Mschakist school — men of sor- 
did morals, on*^ of whom even lived in there with a wom- 
an who was not his wife, and with whom he had several 
children, and the boys of the college were committed to 
the tuition of such a creature. Setrakian had done these 
things with the belief that he was to become Gatholicos, 
and thus he had taken the primary steps toward the ' 'ref- 
ormation " (understand deformation) of the Ghurch. 

Gatholicos Mugurditch could not tolerate such degra- 
dation, and he undertook to overhaul and renovate the 
whole institution, and to purify it according to the spirit 
of the Ghurch of Armenia. 

Setrakian's mask soon came down. He arrayed him- 
self in open defiance to the Holy Pontiff. Ardzrouni's 



ARMENIA'S ORDEAL 93 

paper, the Mschak, published brutal attacks upon the na- 
tion's idolized " Papa," and insulted His Holiness with 
such vile epithets as "savage," " lunatic," &c. 'The 
Mschakist teachers and professors of the college incited 
the students to make demonstrations against His Holi- 
ness. The students were already spoiled under the cor- 
rupt influence of their teachers. They went to the Holy 
PontiflE in groups and made silly representations ; they 
sent to the C^tholicos impudent letters, they cursed and 
swore at His Holiness, they spat and trampled on the 
portraits of the nation's revered head, they hurled oaths 
upon the Holy Pontiff in the sacred Cathedral of Etchmi- 
adzin while His Holiness officiated before the altar ; in 
short, anarchy reigned in Etchmiad'zin. And all these 
things were done at the instigation of the " enlightened" 
Mschakist teachers of the college. 

These violent methods were employed to drive the old 
Pontiff out of his wits, and to bring about his resignation 
under terror. His very life seemed to be in peril. Almost 
every one in the great monastery was a stranger to His 
Holiness, and such a large number of its inhabitants 
turned to be his enemies that he could hardly trust in the 
sincerity of any, excepting his nephew, Mr. Khorene 
Khrimian, who was fortunately with him. 

But Catholicos Mugurditch was no ordinary man. He 
was a hero. He endured all of these for the sake of the 
nation to which he had been a devoted father for thirty- 
nine years. He employed rigorous measures to cleanse 
and purify Etchmiadzin of all its foreign corruptions 
which had found their way into the nation's sacred mon- 
astery during the recent few years. He dismissed the 
teachers and the students of the college and brought new 



94 Armenia's ordeal 

ones in their places. He gave a good shuffling to Se- 
trakian's adherents and dispersed them abroad on various 
missions. He banished Setrakian from Etchmiadzin by 
appointing him Father Superior to some monastery in 
some corner, and thus got rid of the chief agitator of all 
the troubles. It is likely that Setrakian would have been 
divested of his religious orders and punished as he de- 
served to be, if the Catholicos were not hampered by the 
Russian laws, which forbid the punishment of an ecclesi- 
astic by the Catholicos unless sanctioned by the Czar, 
and the Czar surely would not permit that such a villain 
should be punished. 

The Catholicos gathered worthy ecclesiastics within 
the walls of the convent. He introduced rules and reg- 
ulations in every department. He set the presses at work 
printing the Holy Scriptures. He reformed the financial 
department and directed that no more than 4, 000 roubles 
($3,000) should be used annually for his own personal 
expenses, while heretofore the treasury had been at the 
command of the Pontiffs, wherefrom they could draw any 
amount at will. 

Within one year the convent of Etchmiadzin under- 
went a great transformation, and the seat of the Armen- 
ian Pontiffs assumed an appearance worthy of its former 
times. Thus began the turning of the tide, and the athe- 
istic and church-reform sentiments gradually began to 
decrease and disappear. 



ARMENIA'S ORDEAL 95 

CHAPTER Vn. 

ANOTHER STEP TOWARDS NATIONAL REGENERATION. 

From the beginning of the year 1891 up to April, 1894, 
the Armenian Patriarchy of Constantinople was usurped 
by the villainous Khorene Aschikian, who, after making 
a shameful record for two years as Patriarch, had been 
driven to resign in the summer of 1890. 

On the occasion of Aschikian's instalment as Patriarch 
in August, 1888, Archbist p Khrimian being present at 
the ceremonies, addressed the delegation which brought 
the new Patriarch to Constantinople and was taking its 
leave to go back, and spoke the following prophetic 
words : ' ' Kow, you go back and after two years come 
again to take away this Patriarch." It was not under- 
stood at the time what Khrimian exactly meant by saying 
this ; but it was just at the end of two years from that 
time that Aschikian was forced to resign in disgrace. 
But on his resignation Aschikian did not go back to Nic- 
omedia, whence he came — and whence Julian the Apos- 
tate came, by the way. He tarried in Constantinople, 
and after a few months he went and assumed the Patri- 
archy by order of the Sultan, against the will of the 
whole nation. The Armenian National Assembly was 
dismissed, and Aschikian ruled like a cruel dictator. 
Whoever dared to raise a voice of disapproval against the 
Sultan-made Patriarch, he would be punished by the gov- 
ernment as a tr*^asoner. Aschikian was a mean, selfish, 
cowardly and vainglorious man, and he became an obe- 



96 ARMENIA'S ORDEAL 

dient tool of the Sultan. Aschikian was but a blind in- 
strument, and during his dictatorship the Sultan himself 
was virtually the Patriarch of the Armenians. 

Aschikian was in no small measure responsible for the 
banishment of Archbishop Khrimian to Jerusalem. This 
monster, during his dictatorship, suspended the saintly 
Archbishop Khorene Nar-Bey Lusignan in the exercise 
of his ecclesiastical functions. Archbishop Lusignan 
was subjected to severe persecution, both by Aschikian 
and by the Turkish government. His crime consisted in 
this, that he was a very intelligent Armenian, a great 
man, and a descendant of the last dynasty of Armenian 
kings. He was kept under police surveillance for months 
— and that of an outrageous character. When he went 
out anywhere he was followed and preceded by a pack of 
police and spies. When he called at the house of a friend 
a police cordon would be drawn around the house, and 
on his departure the house would be searched and its oc- 
cupants taken to the Department of Police for ' ' exami- 
nation " — and that is saying much in Turkey. These 
things were done to terrify the Armenians from going 
near to Archbishop Lusignan, and every Armenian feared 
to communicate with the beloved father of the nation. 
He lived in an isolated condition, and would not attempt 
to communicate with his friends lest they should fall in 
trouble on account of him. Prince Guy de Lusignan, 
the Archbishop's wealthy brother in Paris, could not suc- 
cor the unfortunate Archbishop because of the severe 
watchfulness of the spies who did everything to cut away 
from Archbishop Lusignan every source of help. He was 
deprived even of the means of a living, and was compel- 
led to go and entreat the mercy of his cruel enemy 




ARCHBISHOP KHORENE NAR-BEY LUSIGNAN. 



Armenia's ordeal 97 

Aschikian, in his pitiful distress, but he was turned out 

from the Patriarchate almost like a vagrant and this 

was the great Archbishop Lusignan, who had been the 
President of the Ecclesiastical Council of the Patriarchate 1 

Archbishop Lusignan was several times taken to the 
Yildiz Palace, the residence of the Sultan, to be "exam- 
ined." On October 15, 1892, the Archbishop was once 
more taken to the Palace, and on the following day he 
dropped dead in his house from the effects of poison, 
which all believed had been administered to him in the 
Palace on the previous day. On his death a police cordon 
was drawn around his house, and no one was allowed to 
enter it. The government physicians pronounced the 
death to have been caused by heart-failure. The dead 
Archbishop had a hasty burial ; his death notice was 
not permitted to be printed until a week after the burial 
of his remains. But the sad news was quickly whispered 
about, and some hundreds of Armenians hurried to the 
Church to which the dead Archbishop's body had been 
removed for the funeral services. By this time every 
evidence of poison was seen on the body of the deceased 
prelate. Af t'^r the funeral services the body was hurried 
to the Armenian cemetery at Shishli, again under police 
surveillance, where it was buried like the corpse of a com- 
mon man. Some Armenians who followed the coffin on 
foot to the cemetery in spite of the rain, could not res- 
train their grief and were seen weeping. They were ar- 
rested and imprisoned for making a demonstration against 
the government. Thus ended the life of one of the great- 
est men that the Armenian nation has had in the present 
century. 

Aschikian's course was intolerable aud proved disas- 



98 ARMENIA'S ORDEAL 

trous to the nation. Simon Bey Maksud, an Armenian 
in the service of the Porte, who had a hypnotic influence 
over Aschikian and was known as a notorious traitor to 
his nation, was killed by certain exasperated Armenian 
patriots, and shortly afterwards an attempt was made on 
the life of Aschikian himself. Aschikian gave up the 
Patriarchal chair in terror and retired to live on a pension 
granted by the Sultan. The patriots to whom the relief 
of the nation was due were charged with being revolu- 
tionists, and were put to death in Turkish prisons under 
terrible tortures, many innocent Armenians also sharing 
their fate on the charge of being accomplices. 

The Patriarchal chair was vacated at a critical time, 
when the Turkish government was altogether pre- 
pared to begin the wholesale massacres for which end it 
had been arming the Kurds and the other Moslems since 
1891. The Armenian National Assembly was called, and 
Bishop Humyyag Timaksian was elected Patriarchal locum 
tenens. Thanks to Bishop Timaksian's energy and wis- 
dom, soon an election took place and Bishop Matthew 
Izmirlian, who had been the nation's second choice for 
Catholicos, was elected Patriarch of Constantinople, and 
was installed at a very critical time, when the Sassoun 
massacre already had taken place. 

Izmirlian was a man of great wisdom and courage, and 
he made such a brave stand that he excited the admira- 
tion of all the foreign diplomats in Constantinople. In 
his day the Armenian Patriarchate was raised to its for- 
mer high significance. The Sultan madly hated Izmir- 
lian, and desired his downfall that the butchery might go 
on without any protest from the Armenian Patriarchate. 
"When Izmirlian paid his first visit to the Sultan in his 



ARMENIA'S ORDEAL 99 

Patriarchal capacity to present his compliments to his 
sovereign, he met with a very cold and rude reception at 
the Palace. But Izmirlian was not afraid on account of 
this. In the nation's overwhelming calamities he made a 
heroic struggle for his people. A correspondent, occa- 
sionally writing from Constantinople to the Neio Yorh 
Tribune, described Patriarch Izmirlian thus : 

" * * * There is no other man in the Armenian na- 
tion so wise, so strong, so calm as Matthios Izmirlian. 
He is one of those men raised up in the supreme crisis of 
a nation's history — a god-like man. His face, seamed 
with the suffering of years, is resolute beyond compari- 
son. In his every word and action there is revealed the 
born king of men. If any man can lead this people 
through these troubles it is he. If he resigns there will 
be nothing then to hope for.* The Patriarchate will 
become the servile instrument of the Porte, and Ottoman 
oppression can proceed unchecked by any protest. While 
he stands and directs the affairs of the Armenian Church, 
there is still some faint hope for the wretched thousands 
in Anatolia. He has bound up the wounds made during 
the last six months to an extent known to only a few. 
When he falls the last hope expires, "f 

In his first encyclical letter as Patriarch, addressed to 
the children of the Church of Armenia and their shep- 
herds, and given February 10, 1895, Patriarch Izmirlian 
said among other things, directing his words particularly 
to the clergy : 

*■ ' Be watchful that the grace of the Christian faith does 

*He has been driven to resign the Patriarchy tinder the threats 
of the Sultan, and about a fortnight after his resignation occurred 
the awful massacre of Armenians in Constantinople, in which tens 
of thousands perished. 

■\Ne7v York Tribune^ April 3, i8g6. 



100 ARMENIA'S ORDEAL 

remain immaculate. Be watchful that no novelties find 
their way into the Apostolic discipline, the canons, the 
forms and the traditions of the Holy Church of Armenia." 

And in an especial encyclical letter addressed to the 
pastor of the Armenian colony in Marseilles, France, da- 
ted March 4, 1895, Patriarch Izmirlian wrot*^ : 

" We beg that you communicate our greetings of fath 
erly affection to all [of the flock in Marseilles], and that 
you admonish them to remain bound to the nation in har- 
monious spirit, and to love its Holy Apostolic Church 
which is the centre of our unity. " 

Khrimian as Catholicos and Izmirlian as Patriarch, the 
nation's two ablest fathers at the helm of the nation, striv- 
ing for the regeneration and moral elevation of their peo- 
ple, gave hopes for the recovery of the dying Armenian 
nation. Within a short time their good influence over 
the Armenians was discernible. Now it was not so fash- 
ionable for the people to look on the Church with con- 
tempt — the Church which for so many centuries had been 
the nation's ark of refuge and salvation. Sincere piety 
began to awaken in the benumbed hearts, and the people 
began to learn to have faith in God and seek consolation 
in the Church where their forefathers worshipped, and 
for which their ancestors suffered martyrdom. 

But, alas ! These signs of recovery proved to be like 
that which appears in an invalid on his death-bed, when 
the end is nigh, and which is soon followed by a relapse, 
and the patient sinks. 

Amidst these hopeful circumstances Armenia was over- 
taken by a tremendous calamity, and that country where 
God once planted the Garden of Eden, became a panorama 
of the awfulest bloodshed and cruelty that the world has 



Armenia's ordeal 101 

ever witnessed in the darkest centuries of barbarism. As 
a newspaper correspondent declared, after having pene- 
trated into Armenia at the risk of his life, to-day Arme- 
nia is from end to end a flaming hell, in which a nation 
is perishing for the sake of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, 
whom they will not renounce. 

Now, instead of the early morning church-bell is heard 
the report of the Moslem assassin's rifle, thundering on 
poor innocent creatures, and insteadof the hymns chanted 
in the Churches in praise of the Eternal Father is heard 
the wail of defenseless women and children. 



